Denis Shapovalov received two awards from ATP during the Nitto ATP World Tour Finals. Among other things, the 18-year-old Canadian may see himself as “Star of tomorrow”.
This young Canadian makes you want to do more: Denis Shapovalov made his breakthrough on the ATP Tour in 2017 and enraptured tennis fans around the globe with breathtaking tennis.
The 18-year-old also paid an important teaching allowance on his way to the top 50 in the world. The positive aspects outweighed the left-handers in large numbers and Shapovalov was honoured with two prizes on the semi-final day of the Nitto ATP World Tour Finals. On the one hand, the “Most Improved Player”, the player who had made the biggest development and improvement in the season, was awarded the “Star of Tomorrow”award. It is awarded to young players with enormous potential – like Alexander Zverev in 2015.
“This is unbelievable – to be here and get these awards. I have worked very hard and I want to be among the top 8 at some point,”Shapovalov explained during the ceremony. The year began with Canada’s child prodigy in 250th place in the world rankings and continued to work his way up. The highlight of the season was the top 50; on 23. October the NextGen star was ranked 49th in the ranking. One of the main reasons for this success was to reach the second round of the US Open by defeating Pablo Carreno-Busta in three close tie-breaks. Shapovalov, born in Tel Aviv, Israel, scored points for his career so far with an outstanding home tournament at the Masters-1000 event in Montréal. There he beat Rafael Nadal and made sure that every spectator knows his name. With breathtaking strokes and a powerful backhand whip he often left his opponents with their mouths open.
The Canadian suffered the hardest setback in the calendar year during the Davis Cup match against Great Britain. In the match against Kyle Edmund, the debutante lost his nerve against himself after a break and hit the ball in the air out of rage. He accidentally hit the chair referee with full force in the eye, he suffered a fracture of the eye socket and Shapovalov was disqualified. Afterwards, the Canadian sat on the bench with a watery face and regretted his outbreak too deeply. It was supposed to be the only low blow in the season – after that the left-handed player set one highlight after another.
During the season, Shapovalov has been to many Challenger tournaments and scored important points in two titles, but 2018 is set to be a “real” title:”I want to win an ATP title and make it into the top 25 – that would be fantastic,”admitted “El Shapo”, as the Canadian is called in tennis forums of fans.
Towards the end of the year, the youngster’s strength waned and Shapovalov often had to say goodbye in the last quarter of the season in the first rounds of the tournaments. The highlight of the remarkable season was the qualification for the NextGen finals in Milan. At the Youngster World Championships he had to leave the group stage after defeats against Andrey Rublev and the later champion Hyeon Chung.
In the coming year, the star of tomorrow will be seen more often on the tour and less frequently at the Challenger competitions – everyone involved in the tennis circuit can look forward to it.
The men’s world ranking list