Canadian teen stuns Kyrgios
Wimbledon junior champion Shapovalov pulls major upset on steamy opening night
Canadian teenager Denis Shapovalov upset Nick Kyrgios — ranked 19th in the world — 7-6 (2), 3-6, 6-3 on the opening night of the Rogers Cup tennis tournament at the Aviva Centre.
Backed by a hometown crowd, the 17-year-old Shapovalov took advantage of Kyrgios’s many unforced errors on a beautiful evening at York University.
Shapovalov, a wild-card entry, was coming off winning the boys’ singles title at Wimbledon this month. The Richmond Hill native is the youngest player in the tournament. He’ll face Grigor Dimitrov in the second round.
Shapovalov opened the third set with a convincing 2-0 lead, breaking Kyrgios in the second game. The Aussie continued to make unforced errors and Shapovalov was able to take advantage.
Shapovalov carried that momentum into the third game, smashing his 11th ace of the match to take a 3-0 lead.
The winning game went to deuce before Shapovalov smashed an ace for the advantage and then had a cross-court forehand winner to take the match.
The Canadian looked nervous off the bat, but was able to compose himself and launched an ace to take the first game of the first set.
He took the first set by overpowering the Aussie with his serve, taking the tiebreak 7-2. Shapovalov’s winner came off a big left-handed serve that was too much for Kyrgios to handle.
Shapovalov, who wore an almost identical kit to Kyrgios minus his white ball cap, carried that momentum into the second set. But Kyrgios started to take control when he broke Shapovalov in the second game of the second set.
Shapovalov came back to break Kyrgios in the next game, and the Canadian fist-pumped in excitement.
Kyrgios broke Shapovalov again to take a 5-3 advantage and win the set.
Serving was key throughout the match. Kyrgios’s serve reached 219 km/h, while Shapovalov’s reached just 187 km/h. The Canadian finished with12 aces, though, to13 by his opponent.
Kyrgios was seen chatting with the line judge on several occasions. The righty recorded a whopping 12 double faults early on and finished the match with 18.
Earlier, Canadians Steven Diez and Peter Polansky also advanced to the second round. Toronto’s Diez downed Britain’s Kyle Edmund 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 while Thornhill’s Polansky moved on with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-0 victory over American qualifier Tim Smyczek.
Polansky was broken in the first game of the first sets, but rebounded nicely in the following two sets.
“I kept fighting and I was feeling really good out there, and I think he kind of lost his gas in the third set,” Polansky said. “It was pretty hot out there and especially with him coming from (weekend) qualifying.”
The humidex in Toronto peaked at 37 C for Diez’s match, 39 C for Polansky’s.
Polansky added that he’s been playing some good tennis over his last 20 matches.
“I’m just trying to roll with it,” Polansky said.
“I’ve played a lot of matches in the last month of two, I’ve played 20 to 25 singles matches and a handful of doubles matches, so I’ve been feeling confident.”