Denis Shapovalov is into the third round of the 2017 Rogers Cup in Montreal, Quebec. The Canadian survived a close match in the first round before winning in the second round much more comfortably on Wednesday. Shapovalov defeated 2009 Montreal finalist Juan Martin del Potro. There are two perspectives that you could take on the outcome, one to do with del Potro and one to do with Shapovalov.
What's wrong with del Potro?
The Argentine and former US Open champion is clearly nowhere near where he was at this time last year. Back in August of 2016, del Potro defeated both Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic en route to a silver medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
This season matters are much different for him. He has just a 16-10 record including a win and a loss in Montreal. In all 2017 events that he has contested, del Potro has just one semifinal appearance, and that came way back at Delray Beach in his season debut. With a loss in Canada to a player ranked outside of the top 100, del Potro is clearly struggling at this point in his career.
Shapovalov will get paid
For Shapovalov, he will head into the third round of a Masters Series event for the first time in his career. His round-of-sixteen match certainly doesn't project to be easy as he could face Rafael Nadal. At the time of writing the Spaniard still had to beat Borna Coric to get to the third round.
Even if Coric should upset Nadal, then Shapovalov would certainly have his hands full with the 20-year-old Croat.
According to the official draw sheet for the event, the prize money for making the third round is $58,295. According to the ATP's webpage for Shapovalov, his career earnings heading into this week are less than $200K.
The $58K that he will earn for his third-round appearance in Montreal, assuming that he does know better, would account for about 23% of his career earnings. Should Shapovalov find a way to survive a section of the draw that has Nadal in it and make the quarters, he would stand to take in just over $112K.
The Canadian also stands to rise in the rankings when Monday rolls around.
Things will jumble around a lot as there are active tournaments, not just in Montreal but at the challenger level too. However, Shapovalov should be about 120th to 125th on Monday if he does no better than the round of sixteen. That may not seem too impressive, but for his age it most certainly is.
No one younger and ranked higher
As of the August 7th rankings for the ATP Tour, there are no 18-year-olds in the top 100. There is a quartet of them ranked 100th to 200th on tour, most notably Casper Ruud of Norway. However, Shapovalov is a tad younger than Ruud, and that means that there's no one younger than the Canadian that is also ranked higher than him at the moment. That has great implications for a successful career as many of the players ranked higher than Shapovalov will fade in the years ahead, presuming the Canadian gets stronger.
Look for him on the order of play for Thursday from the 2017 Rogers Cup, a schedule that is pending at the time of writing. If you are interested in finding out who he will face, then you'll need to follow the Coric/Nadal match this evening from Montreal.
