Shapovalov might need some time and pace
It’s unrealistic to think young star can duplicate rise of 2017
It would be absurd to ever refer to a victory over the great Rafael Nadal as getting the “easy” part done.
But from a certain perspective, all the excitement 18-year-old Canadian tennis player Denis Shapovalov generated last August through his win at the Rogers Cup over Nadal and the series of victories that followed at the U.S. Open was in fact less difficult to produce than similar success on the extended process he’s embarked on now.
That, beginning late Sunday night (Monday afternoon Down Under) with his impressive first-round triumph over Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece at the Australian Open, is the process of establishing himself as more than just an exciting blip on the ATP Tour. This is now the hard part, the grind, getting used to the travel and being away from home, managing his schedule intelligently and dealing with the injuries that seem to have become so commonplace on the tour and have derailed so many young careers.
Since delivering a pair of singles victories against India to power Canada to a Davis Cup triumph last fall, Shapovalov had, prior to Melbourne, experienced a few understandable speed wobbles.
In eight matches, he had won only two. That included two losses in three matches to start 2018, results that included some warning signs about how Shapovalov, even with an expanded team of helpers led by new full-time coach Martin Laurendeau, was going to be able to handle all the hype and publicity that was being directed his way.
Beating Tsitsipas to open the first Grand Slam event of the year, then, put some of those concerns to rest. Like Shapovalov, the 19-year-old Tsitsipas is regarded as one of the better young players in the game, and his ranking of No. 82 in the world reflects that.
Even with some wildness in the third set, Shapovalov dispatched the Greek with relative ease 6-1, 6-3, 7-6 (5), moving on to the second round when the tournament gets even harder in perhaps the toughest quarter of the Down Under draw.
All the elements were there for the young Canadian against Tsitsipas. The big, swinging lefty serve. The howitzer forehand. The backhand that despite a lot of moving parts is more than serviceable, and the net game that seems quite mature for such a young player with such a big game from the baseline.
There were no “buts” to the Shapovalov performance, really. The final stats were good, with a 57 per cent first-serve effort, 33 winners to only 11 for his opponent and 21 points won on 26 moves forward to the net.
With tournament observers already talking about a possible collision with Aussie star Nick Kyrgios in the third round, Shapovalov jumped on Tsitsipas early, winning the first set in only 27 minutes.
The first major of the year can be a difficult hurdle for many players coming off the brief break in the schedule that stands as the “off-season.”
Shapovalov handled it effectively, giving Canada its first singles victory in either the men’s or women’s side of the Australian Open draw.
There’s still something that feels a little too much, too fast about how this has gone so far for Shapovalov. Maybe it’s just being a little gun-shy, having seen Eugenie Bouchard soar to the heights of the tennis world in 2014 and then plummet to the point she’s barely relevant to start 2018.
There’s a lot on the tennis tour that can turn a young person’s head, and Shapovalov had it all thrown at him after his triumph over Nadal, from sponsorships to commercials to invitations to special “NextGen” events. He even had Wayne Gretzky cheering him on in person last summer in Montreal.
Milos Raonic, as we’ve seen, is so level-headed he’s been able to deal comfortably with the kind of attention afforded a rising tennis talent. Raonic’s challenges have been less with the demands of life as a tennis star and more about working on his on-court vulnerabilities and being able to stay healthy for any considerable period of time.
Shapovalov, well, we’re still getting to know and understand him.
What we do know is he is the most exciting and potentially the most well-rounded men’s player the country has produced, but also a teenager on a tennis tour that has been dominated the past three to five years by players 27 years of age and older. Raonic is now 27 and he’s still waiting for a Masters 1000 title, let alone a Grand Slam tournament win.
So this is quite probably the beginning of a long, slow rise for Shapovalov, and a quantum leap forward this year might be asking a little too much.
Even with injuries to stars like Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic, and even with long-time stalwarts like Jo-Wilfred Tsonga and Tomas Berdych fading, the men’s tour is still incredibly tough. The excellent ESPN tennis analyst and highly regarded coach Darren Cahill suggested that 2018 needs to be a year for Shapovalov to “consolidate” his No. 50 ranking, and that seems about right. Perhaps a run to the final at a smaller event, and then good showings in two or three of the Grand Slam events. More Davis Cup success, starting next month against Croatia.
Pacing himself, of course, probably isn’t what Shapovalov is thinking, or what many Canadian tennis fans are hoping for. They’re looking for more wins like the one he had over Nadal.
With talent like this young man has, it’s easy to get carried away with what might be possible.
After all, some tennis observers were calling him part-Nadal, part-Roger Federer last summer, and anointing him as the game’s Next Big Thing.
Well, let’s slow down just a bit with all that, OK? Let’s keep the expectations sensible. Shapovalov is likely to be at least 22 or 23 years old by the time he’s ready to do some serious winning.
So buckle up and be patient. This could take a little while. Damien Cox’s column appears Tuesday and Saturday