On Jan. 24, 20-year-old Ben Shelton reached the quarterfinals of the 2023 Australian Open.

Shelton, a Florida native, became the youngest American to reach a quarterfinal in Melbourne since Andy Roddick. On top of that record, though, laid a long-held milestone not broken in almost sixty years — Shelton was the first NCAA singles champion to advance that far since Arthur Ashe in 1966.

J.J. Wolf, Shelton’s match opponent, held the No. 1 rank at one point at Ohio State. Wolf and Shelton aren’t outliers either; of the top 100 players on the ATP tour, 12 singles and 35 doubles players in their respective rankings developed their game on a college campus in the U.S.

This level of success hasn’t gone unnoticed. In addition to increased attraction from both homegrown and foreign players as a viable development option, the ATP’s new Accelerator Program — made in partnership with the ITA, college tennis’ governing body — just announced it would grant main draw and qualification spots in Challenger Tour events (the ATP’s second level of competition) to the top 20 ranked NCAA singles players at the end of the season, regardless of where they currently stand in the ATP rankings.

Collegiate tennis is in a ‘Tennaissance,’ and OSU coach Dustin Taylor is ready to put the Cowboys front and center of it all. He sums up his goals for the program with one idea.

“[At] Oklahoma State, you come here to win national championships … The standard here is high.”

***** In a globally-competitive sport with some of its greatest legends entering professional play as young as 15, for many young players vying for big-time success college used to be seen as a lateral move, perhaps even a step back.

Now? “It’s not a hard sell anymore,” Taylor said. “At 18 years old, you’d better be physically extremely mature, mentally extremely mature, and also not feel the weight of the world pressure and financials-wise [to go pro]… but for the majority now, the world’s really seeing the benefits of college tennis and all the resources that it provides them, all the opportunity it provides them and all the growth that it provides them.” For older players such as fifth-year Chase Ferguson, college was a last minute choice. Before becoming the Cowboys’ captain, the native Australian played four years at South Florida, and just barely made it there.

On the other end of the age spectrum lies freshman Carl Roothman from Cape Town, South Africa, who began talking to Taylor as soon as he was hired at OSU.

“The long term goal was obviously to go pro, but I felt that my game still had some areas to improve on,” Roothman said. “I started talking to [Taylor] the first day that he got the job…we spoke for quite a long while because I had an injury and wasn’t sure when I would come.”

Whether their choice is made over years or months, one of the biggest things Taylor brings into account is the players’ personality and attitude off-court. With so many results tied to individual performance, having the right team chemistry can make all the difference on the sideline, in training or mid-match. Passionate and energetic players can keep their teammates energized, and cool personalities keep level heads in their or other games.

“You can’t have all testosterone driven egomaniacs that are going nuts, but then you also can’t have just all soft spoken guys,” Taylor said. “When you’re looking down the line a year or two, you want to bring in a freshman that can sort of emulate an Isaac Becroft or a Tyler Zink… guys that could bring power or calm to a team at any given time.”

***** Alongside his role as assistant coach of a Virginia team that won four national championships and produced two national singles champions, Dustin Taylor spent more than a decade as a professional coach on the ATP tour, tutoring former NCAA players from across the country to career-high pro rankings.

The experience of working with college players on the professional tour puts Taylor, affectionately dubbed ‘DT’ by his students and coworkers, in a unique position to maximize player development for success on both the professional and collegiate stage.

“We want to pride ourselves on being one of those elite programs that takes every player, tries to look through their lens and tries to develop their identity, has that player buy into their identity, and have a bunch of different game styles [on our team],” Taylor said.

Taylor implements his coaching method across the program in different ways. He exposes players to film of like-minded professionals, pushes them to explore their on-court personalities and how to infuse it into their game. For freshman Alessio Basile, it’s a system he’s not used to but enjoying being a part of.

“My childhood idol was Roger Federer,” Basile said, “but at the moment, I try to take a bit away from (world No. 21) Tommy Paul. I mean, we talk about with our coaches, like ‘try and find your identity,’ and it told me that I match pretty well with Tommy Paul. So I try to look up to him more now.”

Individual lessons are also key to the system — whereas other Power Five programs across the country typically implement weekly or biweekly lessons, Taylor believes daily work is key to both current and future success. Although entirely optional, it’s taken advantage of by every player on the team, who already work with individual coaches or parents in the offseason.

“In the time that I’ve been at Oklahoma State, it’s clear to me that I’ve gotten better in the short period of time that I’ve been here,” Zink said. “They’ve been such a help to me… just having more of a plan, really playing a ball ahead; I wasn’t very good at it coming here, but I’m starting to get the hang of it more and being able to do it in competition.”

While Taylor is focused on winning as a team in the present, with his system and history of creating high-level pros, he could soon put a Cowboy in the same place as Shelton found himself in January, or perhaps even higher.

Taylor said, “That’s promised to them in the recruiting pitch. If you just do team practice, it’s gonna create a good competitive environment, but actually developing guys’ games? I found it tough to do with six courts going on and the madness that team practice is … it’s something that we as coaches in our staff we really pride ourselves on, that we’re going to give you the individual time that guys on the tour are getting with a coach.”