One of the most interesting stories of this season is definitely Valentin Vacherot's victory at the Shanghai Masters. A player who reached this tournament through qualifications and was ranked outside the top 200 managed to win the trophy in extremely strong competition. Few expected such a scenario, including Valentin Vacherot and his associates.
His former coach, Steve Denton, was a key figure during one phase of his career. Denton recently reflected on Valentin Vacherot's victory at the Shanghai Masters and his great streak on the Inside In Tennis podcast.
Denton knows Vacherot well and knows his weaknesses and strengths, but he did not expect Vacherot to beat Novak Djokovic in the semifinals.
A lot of things came together for Vacherot, who didn't have such a strong ambition or expectation that he could do great things in this tournament. Nevertheless, tennis is known as a sport that writes interesting stories.
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I knew he was a very good player, said Denton. In his situation, he had done the preparation for this in the year before. He had won three Challengers in Thailand under those really extreme conditions of heat and humidity and then he won one in India. And then he hurt himself at Wimbledon, didnt know how to run on the grass, slips and falls in the last round of qualies and hurts his knee, so is out for a while as a result of that.
Sort of recovers from that and then obviously gets his chancethey had gone over there to play Challengers, he had gone over there as maybe the seventh or eighth alternate. So they had come early in preparation for all the Challengers that were subsequent to Shanghai and so he was there and he signed in and then I think it was [Luca] Nardi, someone who was six or seven ahead of him as an alternate pulled out and he ended up getting in, which opened up the door.
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And he had played all those tournaments in those tough conditions, he has a tough match with [Nishesh] Basavareddy, almost loses, two points away from losing to [Liam] Draxl next round as well in the qualies and then he gets in the main draw and now he starts playing with house money and hes beating all of these guys."- he said.
A surprise and an important feature
In the sequel, Denton points out how surprising it was that Vacherot had problems with significantly weaker players, but shortly after he enters the main draw and fights with the best tennis players.
One of the more important things that his former coach stresses is that Vacherot is a tennis player who always goes for shots under pressure, considering it an important characteristic.
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Denton credits his hitting streak to those pressure shots.
He admits that he was tense in the final and had a lump in his throat all week, but such moments are never forgotten and were certainly an important part of Vacherot's path to this title.
The Monegasque has shown that tennis is a sport in which you should never give up, that even when many write you off, it can serve as a means of motivation.
The 27-year-old is now a tennis player who many have started to pay attention to and from whom much greater things are now expected.
Whether the added pressure will spoil Valentin's plans remains to be seen in the coming season.
