Patience is a virtue often overlooked in tennis, drowned out by talk of physicality, of power, speed and endurance. At 6ft 5in, Alexei Popyrin possesses all those things, but the Australian has had to wait for his time in the sun. In Montreal earlier this month, Popyrin became the first Australian to win a Masters 1000 title since Lleyton Hewitt in 2003. In doing so, he pushed his ranking to a career-high No 23 and thrust his name at least into the conversation when it comes to players who could make a big run at the US Open.
Ben Shelton, Grigor Dimitrov, Hubert Hurkacz, Seb Korda and then, in the final, Andrey Rublev, all discovered just how good Popyrin can be when he puts everything together. “Confidence levels are definitely high right now,” Popyrin said. “I think it’s hard not to have high confidence after a win like that. It’s definitely a good feeling getting on the tennis court and having such confidence. Hopefully that can stay for a while.”
