It was only a few weeks ago many tennis fans got their first look at 18-year-old potential superstar Denis Shapovalov. The Canadian gained entry to his home event at the Montreal Masters only to shock the world beating 2009 US Open champion Juan Martin Del Potro and 15-time Slam champion Rafael Nadal en route to the semifinals.
Despite currently at a career high of #69, the Canadian wasn’t able to gain direct entry to the US Open and while also not given a wildcard, his only entry route was to qualify.
It was quite the ride in qualifying too; after beating Denis Kudla and Gastao Elias in straight sets, the 18-year-old found himself a set down to the World #195 Jan Satral in the final round of qualifying. Eventually the youngster would go on to win and make his first ever US Open main draw.
Perhaps luckily he found himself in the much weaker half of the draw but regardless of that he still found himself against former World #5 Jo Wilfried Tsonga in the second round but shocked the world dispatching of the Frenchman in straight sets.
Unfortunately for British fans, Kyle Edmund injured himself at one set all and three all in their Round 3 encounter, leaving the Canadian to advance to the last 16.
However, the Spaniard Pablo Carreno-Busta was too much for the potential future of tennis to handle. Despite serving for the first set and having set points the Spaniard fought back to win the first set.
The Spaniard also broke early in the second but Shapovalov broke back much like a role reversal of the first set. Unfortunately for the Candian, the second set also went the same way as the first in yet another tiebreak with the Spaniard raising his game at exactly the right time.
Only a few minutes later the 18-year-old had a 3-0 lead with break points for 4-0 with a run of 12 consecutive points. Due to lack of experience, however, it wasn’t long before the experienced Spaniard held serve and found himself back on serve.
Without too long, the pair found themselves in their third consecutive tiebreak. Just like the last two the Spaniard did what he had to do while Shapovalov yet again made several poor unforced errors, leading to a Carreno Busta win.
The fairy tale run comes to an end and despite having so many chances today and a dream draw ahead. There are at least many positives the Canadian should take from this moving onwards. Especially as his new ranking next week will allow him to automatically get into every event on tour bar the ATP World Tour Finals, the future looks incredibly bright for the Canadian star.
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