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By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Sunday January 19, 2020

 
Denis Shapovalov

Denis Shapovalov feel at the first hurdle against Marton Fucsovics on Monday in Melbourne.

Photo Source: Mark Peterson/ Corleve

Denis Shapovalov struggled to find his game and at times buckled under the pressure of playing his first Grand Slam contest of 2020 on Monday in Melbourne. The nerves, and the steady, poised play of Hungary’s Marton Fucsovics proved to be too much for the 20-year-old Canadian as he fell in four sets, 6-4, 6-7(7), 6-1 7-6(3).

“I had a lot of chances,” Shapovalov lamented in front of a gathering of reporters after the match. He said that nerves played a role in his eventual demise and that he couldn't seem to stop vacillating between calm and uptight during the contest. “Up a break in the fourth set, and again getting tight. Having a break point and then again just shanking a forehand. I’m not trying to take anything away from him, I think he played an excellent match. He played really well in the fourth-set tiebreak and he was super solid the whole match.”

Shapovalov was the highest seed to fall on Day 1 in Melbourne, and he was frustrated by his own ability to come through on the big points.


“If I won that fourth set, nobody knows what can happen in the fifth,” he said. “Obviously not all of me was there today.”

Shapovalov seemed to have the match turned in his direction after he saved a set point in the second set and claimed a hard-fought tiebreaker from Fucsovics, but he fell apart in the third and ended up scrapping with the chair umpire when he was given a code violation for tossing his racquet—something he had done several times at that point in the match, though without breaking it.

“I think that’s a terrible call from the ref,” the Canadian opined after the match. “I don’t think what I did was wrong at all,” he said. “I’m trying to let off some steam.”

Though he recovered nicely in the fourth set he was unable to pick apart the steady, opportunistic game of Fucsovics. In the tiebreaker Shapovalov may have forced things a bit too much and the Hungarian was ready to counter Shapovalov’s serve-and-volley tactics with the match on the line. Fucsovics made several sterling plays and he ended up with four match points as a reward.

He would need only one before he clinched one of the biggest wins of his career.

In the end it just wasn’t to be for Shapovalov, but the loss won’t dampen the promising Canadian's spirits or cause him to believe that he doesn’t belong with the elite players of the game.

Tennis Express

“I feel like my game’s there to beat any of the top guys, but of course there are so many great players out there and if I’m a little bit off or a little bit nervous, anybody can beat me as well,” Shapovalov said. “It’s just about learning, going forward, obviously it’s a really disappointing one, but there’s nothing to do now except learn from it. It’s just going to make me want to work harder and want to do better in the next tournament.”

Job No.1 for Shapovalov is to figure out how to quell the nerves so that he can play his best tennis when on the biggest stages.

“Once you get into that it’s tough to get out of it, so it’s about kind of preventing it and finding ways,” he said. “There’s things and tactics and things you try to do to kind of calm down, stuff I’m working on with Mischa (coach Mikhail Youzhny) in the last couple weeks, on the mental side on the court, like taking my time and all that stuff, but I was just not able to do it, I think I did a better job in the fourth set but obviously it wasn’t enough.”

 

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