Shapovalov Soars!
Sunday we witnessed Denis Shapovalov in full flight in the finals of Dallas, after running through two top 10 players in the quarters and semis, Shapo came in with some exciting form.
After a long road to the final and plenty of tests along the way Denis came in red hot against yet another top 10 player in Casper Ruud, who was arguably the clear favorite going into today. With little give in the first set Ruud and Shapo were neck and neck throughout, both getting into each other’s service games, there was little to no budging from either competitor with the set heading to a tiebreak. Nerves fell on either player with both gaining mini breaks at the start of the breaker, but it was a composed Denis who held strong to take it 7-5. Taking the confidence from the breaker, Shapo started the second set after a few deuce points going into his favor on his serve after being a little shaky after stealing the first break of the match. After the tricky service game to start the second set Shapo was finally able to relax and gain some headway, racing to a quick 4-1 lead to take full control of the match. Casper wasn’t playing badly but just losing the big points to Denis, after keeping it tight in the first set you could see the fatigue of the week getting to Ruud, leaning and bending over after long points while looking at his team for some words of wisdom. With a few tight games back and forth on each other’s serve it was Shapo with the most break points going 1/5 on breaks with Ruud being 0/1 on his sole break. What helped Denis most today aside from his composure was his serve, raining down 13 aces with only 2 double faults as well as winning 72% of his 1st serve points with Casper’s serve not living up to the test having 5 aces and 1 double. Denis had a dream week in Dallas with him capturing his biggest title yet, beating the top 3 seeds which just so happen to be top 10 players in route.
