Denis Shapovalov is the toast of Montreal for a night as he defeated Rafael Nadal on Thursday at the 2017 Rogers Cup. It will be interesting to see how Shapovalov approaches his next match. On the one hand, he did beat the World No. 2 on Thursday. But on the contrary, it was just in the round of sixteen of a Masters Series event. A lot of players that pull off big early-round upsets often go out in the next round ahead of getting big-time ranking points. Shapovalov will certainly have to stay focused on Friday if he is to advance to the semifinals.
Shapovalov will be in tough on Friday
The Canadian will face Adrian Mannarino, a name that not a lot of Canadian tennis fans will know. Mannarino, at the age of 29, is a well-established veteran on tour. He has been a bit of a journeyman who has struggled to keep his ranking high at times. However, a couple of months ago he appeared to figure something out. He made the final of a grass-court event in Turkey ahead of making the Wimbledon fourth round.
Last week he played well down in Los Cabos before falling in a well-contested match to Tomas Berdych. Now Mannarino is into the Montreal quarters with the distinguished form at the tournament. He has not dropped a set nor has anyone extended him to a tiebreaker so far this week.
Mannarino was able to break Milos Raonic, and the French national will almost certainly defeat Shapovalov on Friday if the 18-year-old is too busy relishing in his Nadal victory instead of focusing on the match at hand.
Shapovalov's new ranking scenarios
With an appearance in the quarterfinals of the Rogers Cup, the Canadian is now threatening the top 100 on tour.
But his draw is still active in Montreal, and that means that there is plenty of room to grow. With a win on Friday, he would threaten the top 70, and that would mean not needing a wild card or a qualifying draw for entry into the Grand Slams. Furthermore, it would also mean being a high seed in any challenger events that he participates in and getting a direct entry into scores of tour-level tournaments.
In effect, there is a ton on the line for him on Friday.
Shapovalov's ceiling in the rankings to come on Monday is actually something close to a top-30 ranking. If he can beat Mannarino, then the Canadian will be looking at a semifinal against either Alexander Zverev or Kevin Anderson. Certainly the former is the beast on top of the draw now that Nadal has gone out. But Zverev and Anderson were the finalists last week in Washington. These are two players that might be running out of gas right now as they have logged a lot of matches and court mileage in recent days. Shapovalov can do more than just dream about a spot in the final against Roger Federer. If the Canadian stays composed and don't say "good enough" after beating Nadal, then there's a legitimate path to the championship match in Montreal.
