{"id":25920,"date":"2024-08-13T14:04:03","date_gmt":"2024-08-13T04:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/?p=25920"},"modified":"2024-08-13T14:04:19","modified_gmt":"2024-08-13T04:04:19","slug":"popyrin-im-a-masters-1000-title-winner-and-i-cant-believe-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/news\/2024\/08\/13\/popyrin-im-a-masters-1000-title-winner-and-i-cant-believe-it","title":{"rendered":"Popyrin: \u201cI\u2019m a Masters 1000 title winner and I can\u2019t believe it"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alexei Popyrin has capped a breakout week in Montreal in emphatic style, upstaging world No.6 Andrey Rublev for his maiden ATP Masters 1000 trophy.<\/p>\n

Ranked No.62 heading into his Canadian Masters main draw debut, the 25-year-old denied five top 20 rivals in succession to complete the dream result and depart as the new world No.23.<\/p>\n

His 6-2 6-4 triumph made him the first Australian since Lleyton Hewitt defended his Indian Wells crown 21 years go to claim a Masters 1000 title and prompted a post-match camera lens sign-off of \u201cwhat just happened?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUnbelievable, words really can’t describe this feeling,\u201d Popyrin said courtside. \u201cAll the hard work that myself and my team put in over the last few years, it’s just paid off.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m a Masters 1000 title winner and I can’t believe it\u2026 Firstly my team, we’ve been through thick and thin.<\/p>\n

“‘X’, my coach (Xavier Malisse), Nev, (Neville Godwin) my other coach supporting me from South Africa, my whole team, my fitness coach, my physio \u2013 he was honestly massaging me at 2am last night so big props to him and also my family and my girlfriend. They’ve dedicated their whole lives to this.\u201d<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/atptour\/status\/1823176313257263493<\/p>\n

Popyrin was forced to work overtime just to reach the title match<\/a> after inclement weather delayed play and meant he needed to defeat fourth seed Hubert Hurkacz and last week\u2019s Washington champion Sebastian Korda only hours later on the same day.<\/p>\n

He saved three match points against seventh seed Grigor Dimitrov<\/a> to reach his second ATP Masters 1000 quarterfinal.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe beat great players, he was having a really tough draw, finishing last night, really late, and today winning the title is a really big achievement, so I want to congratulate you, I’m happy for you, man,\u201d Rublev said.<\/p>\n

Popyrin went on to become the eighth men\u2019s winner this year to recover from match point down during his title run and the first at ATP Masters 1000 level since Hurkacz saved a championship point against Rublev in the Shanghai final last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think just kind of focus on what I have to do,\u201d he said. \u201cOn the two match points before the third one, I didn’t make a first serve and I felt like I had to make one to kind of put the pressure on and do it.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/TennisAustralia\/status\/1823168972784599155<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t remember what happened on match point. I don’t know if I made my first serve or not, but I think I did and hit a pretty solid forehand to win it so to me that’s my thought process through the whole tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I saved the three match points I just kind of looked at them as break points not match points and just focused on what I had to do on my serve to hold my serve and yeah, came through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Popyrin became just the fourth Australian after Hewitt at Indian Wells in 2002-2003, Mark Philippoussis at Indian Wells in 1999 and Pat Rafter at Toronto and Cincinnati in 1998 to land an ATP Masters 1000 title.<\/p>\n

It was a feat of which the new Australian No.2 behind 10th<\/sup>-ranked Alex de Minaur would not take sole credit.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy family kind of left Australia early on in my life to pursue my tennis career with my brother and my younger sister,\u201d he said. \u201cThey’ve just sacrificed so much. I wouldn’t be here without them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow Tennis Australia on Facebook, Instagram and X for updates of Aussies in action.<\/em><\/p>\n

Find your way to play:\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/b>Visit\u00a0<\/em>play.tennis.com.au<\/a>\u00a0to get out on court and have some fun!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alexei Popyrin has capped a breakout week in Montreal in emphatic style, upstaging world No.6 Andrey Rublev for his maiden ATP Masters 1000 trophy. Ranked No.62 heading into his Canadian Masters main draw debut, the 25-year-old denied five top 20 rivals in succession to complete the dream result and depart as the new world No.23. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6323,"featured_media":25921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6323"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}