Annabel Croft’s Wimbledon Blunder with Ben Shelton Has Fans in Stitches
Wimbledon is no stranger to memorable moments, but this time it wasn’t a thundering ace or a dramatic tiebreaker making headlines — it was Annabel Croft and an NFL slip-up that’s now gone viral.
The former tennis pro, now a familiar face for British sports fans, was courtside on Monday interviewing rising American star Ben Shelton, moments after his thrilling win secured him a spot in his first Wimbledon quarter-final.
Croft, keen to explore Shelton’s sporting roots, decided to bring up his time in American football. And that’s when it happened.
“I was reading that, in college, you loved your American football and you were a quarterbacker. What are the comparisons? I hope I’ve got this right. What are the comparisons between tennis and American football?” she asked.
It didn’t take long for Shelton to spot the slip. “I’m not sure many people in the crowd know what that is,” he quipped, sparking laughter around Centre Court.
“They use that brown, oval-shaped ball. Sometimes they kick it between the uprights. But yeah, I grew up playing quarterback or quarterbacker, either way.”
The light-hearted exchange left both interviewer and player grinning, with Croft momentarily lowering her microphone as the laughter rolled on.
Shelton then reflected on how his American football days shaped his tennis game. “Probably the only thing that’s a direct correlation with tennis is the serve, as you guys can probably see.
And so, yeah, that’s kind of the one thing that I took from football onto the tennis court. Obviously, I’ve always loved athletics, playing a team sport, something bigger than yourself.
“Now, I’m obviously playing an individual sport, but I still have a team supporting me that I work with every day. So that’s the most important thing to me. I don’t want to be out here by myself. I want to be doing it with people that I love, and I got a lot of people that I love over there.”
Social media, of course, wasted no time weighing in. One NFL fan on X (formerly Twitter) called it “beyond embarrassing”, while others admitted it was all part of Wimbledon’s charm.
As Shelton spoke about his supporters, the cameras caught a sweet moment, his girlfriend, US footballer Trinity Rodman, beaming proudly from the stands.
The NFL has been growing in popularity here in the UK, with regular-season games hosted in London since 2007, save for the pandemic-hit 2020 season. Still, the language gap between “football” and “American football” clearly leaves room for a few entertaining misunderstandings.
Shelton’s next challenge? None other than world No. 1 Jannik Sinner, who progressed after Grigor Dimitrov retired with a pectoral injury in their fourth-round match.
The quarter-final showdown is set for Wednesday morning — and the spotlight will be firmly on the young American once again.
