Welcome to the big stage, son
Teen tennis star Denis Shapovalov proves he can rise to the moment
The second weeks of Grand Slam tennis events are curious things. With the only draws that anyone much cares about — the men’s and women’s singles — having been pared down to a dozen or so competitors, the courts at the massive venues such as the National Tennis Center in Queens, New York, are filled with, well, filler. Mixed doubles, “legends” matches with retired former stars, and the junior draws.
The junior draws are where the teenagers play. Unless, it would seem, you are Denis Shapovalov.
The main men’s singles draw is where we are finding the gangly 18-year-old from the Toronto suburbs, where he is suddenly, remarkably, steaming toward a lofty appearance in that second week.
After beating eight-seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga under the lights at Arthur Ashe Stadium on Wednesday night, Shapovalov will meet 22-year-old Brit Kyle Edmund in the third round at the U.S. Open. The Canadian is, at least in theory, the underdog, as Edmund is ranked 42nd in the world — Shapovalov just cracked the top 70 — and has been playing among the men for a couple of seasons now.
But we are past the point where it makes sense to assess what Shapovalov is doing from a rational perspective. He stopped doing what was expected of him some weeks ago.
First, there was the upset of former Grand Slam winner Juan Martin del Potro at the Coupe Rogers in Montreal, which was an eyebrow-raiser, although sometimes weird stuff happens in tennis. Then he went ahead and beat Rafa Nadal at the same event, which was simply bananas. Nadal, who has won almost as many Slam titles (15) as years Shapovalov has been alive, is in the middle of a renaissance season in which he climbed back up to the top of the world rankings. He wobbled against Shapovalov, as elite players sometimes do against unheralded opponents, but he gathered himself and pushed back hard. When that happens, the weaker player generally folds. The Canadian pushed back himself and won anyway, in front of a wild crowd in Montreal.
And that, more that anything, is what makes Denis Shapovalov look like an entirely different kind of up-and-coming Canadian tennis star: man, can this kid rise to the moment.
It was on full display again on Wednesdaynight. Arthur Ashe Stadium is absurdly large. It’s like someone dropped one of the biggest hockey arenas — Chicago’s United Center, say — on top of a tennis court. Players who have never performed there say it can take a lot of getting used to — swirling winds that can do funky things to a ball in the stadium bowl, the lights, the unusually loud crowd for a sport that attracts a lot of teaand-scones types.
And Shapovalov went out, in his first-ever appearance there, in prime time no less, and broke Tsonga’s first service game. He didn’t even lose a point doing it. Shapovalov was up 2-0 in that first set in a hurry. Welcome to the big stage, son. It would end up a straight-sets win over the Frenchman. I mean, who does that?
On the men’s side, at least, teens just don’t pull off such feats, at least not in the past decade. This is an era that has been overwhelmingly dominated by a collection of greats, to the point that they have completely smothered a new generation from rising to take their place. Roger Federer, Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and Andy Murray have won 47 of the past 55 Grand Slam titles. Add Stan Wawrinka’s three, and there has been almost no room for anyone else to make a charge up the rankings to take a place among the game’s greats. Milos Raonic, most obviously to Canadians, has been among those who have stalled in their efforts to become reliable contenders in the big tournaments. But he has company in “Generation Lost,” the name used for the group that includes Del Potro, Tsonga, Kei Nishikori, Grigor Dimitrov and Marin Cilic as players who have never approached the level of the Big Four even as those four have kept getting older. Every time one of that next group has been profiled with a headline that asks if they will be the future of tennis, the answer has eventually come back: no.
And now comes Shapovalov, like a bolt from nowhere, with the cool nickname and the backwards ballcap and swagger to burn, beating a couple of those guys as though to prove the point that the next stars of the game will come from a whole new generation.
There are a pile of caveats to add here: Shapovalov’s wild run could end just as quickly as it started, and even if he keeps it going for a while yet, this sport, and this country, knows well that sudden tennis stardom does not necessarily last.
But it is one hell of a start. Let’s not wonder if Denis Shapovalov is the future of Canadian tennis. Let’s wonder if he’s the future of tennis.