One of a kind, Shapo is the future!

John McEnroe's golden years ended in late 1990s. It's been more than two decades since the tennis fraternity has seen a southpaw crushing single handed backhands. Born to Ukrainian mother and Russian father, Canadian Denis Shapovalov has traits of American tennis style in more ways than one. Big service, heavy forehands, rocket of a backhand and of course a not so great temper! Lets just say that the great Pete Sampras was an exception. 

When the 22 year old Canadian stepped on to the Centre Court against the greatest brit of all time Andy Murray, there were about 15 people rooting for Shapo in a fully packed Centre Court. Very few expected what was about to unfold. Denis Shapovalov was a slight favourite but the way he demolished Wimbledon's favourite son when all of 8000 brits were cheering for Murray for the entirety of 2 hours was something that nobody saw coming. As they say in England, he totally did Murray left, right and center, probably the most complete performance in his young career. 

After a tough and grueling quarterfinal vs Karen Khachanov, Shapo was all set to play the number one player in the world Novak Djokovic at the Centre Court where he was all set to get more support than Djokovic. Started brilliantly, at 1-1, 15-40 in the first set, Shapo brought out his full array of strokes. Heavy hits all round the court, he did Novak with a thunderous cross court backhand to get a break of serve. At 30-30, serving for the 1st set, a great 1st serve, heavy forehand to djokovic's backhand and then another rocket of a cross court backhand to make djokovic play a defensive forehand slice, it was all set for Denis Shapovalov to go 40-30 up and be just a point away from the 1st set on his own serve but he flustered for the first time in the match and missed the easiest of forehands in an open court. Djokovic had a break point and he obliged. First set to Djokovic 7-6 in a rather one sided tiebreak. After playing the better tennis for the best part of a 57 minute first set, Shapo lost the opener because of that one forehand miss and it's often the case that the young players completely lose it and go a break down immediately in the next set. However the Canadian defied the odds and went full throttle again in the second set, another intriguing battle, lasting for almost an hour. Djokovic won the last two sets 7-5 in a match where Shapovalov looked the better player many a times but Djokovic just had it to fight it out in the crucial moments. One of the more noticeable aspect of the match was the conversion of break points. The Canadian as it shows, converted only 1 of 12 break points offered by Novak Djokovic and if you don't take your chances against the best, you stand very little chance of coming out on top. Once players like Djokovic have the upper hand on the game, they generally keep it forever but Shapovalov denied Djokovic to get on top for any length of time and always kept a check on him. 

As the 22 year old prodigy, with enormous pedigree to be a multiple time grand slam champion in future, left the Centre Court in tears, entire crowd clapped and applauded the future of tennis. Though he let his emotions show on court more than a handful of times, everyone should just relax and accept that it's a part of his game. May be if he doesn't react, he won't produce that level of tennis. Now he has had his best grand slam performance in London. I do think that his best bet is hard courts. His heavy hitting suits hard courts but there is no doubt that he is equipped with such a complete game that he can win on all surfaces. He is very superfit, young and has at least a decade in front of him to make a great career. Denis Shapovalov will be a showstopper in the years to come and it will be very interesting to see how he evolves in the coming years.