Alexei Popyrin is one of Australia’s most promising tennis players and he made moves last year to realise his potential. Here’s his plan to get even better.
Alexei Popyrin decided something had to give midway through last year, while mired in a patch where he suffered 10 defeats in 11 matches.
By the Cincinnati Masters in August, Popyrin had parted ways with his old coach and hired fellow Australian Craig O’Shannessy and a Spaniard, Fernando Bogajo.
Anyone who’s watched the 22-year-old knows his game is built around his powerful serve and forehand – but he realised he needed more than that to achieve his long list of on-court goals.
Among them is overtaking Alex de Minaur and co. to become Australia’s top-ranked men’s tennis player, something he hopes will happen as soon as this year.
O’Shannessy most famously worked with world No.1 Novak Djokovic for three years and is a data-based tennis guru who specialises in developing and understanding patterns of play.
His ongoing task is to harness Popyrin’s obvious gifts and turn him into a more polished, smarter tennis player.
They enjoyed a solid start together in the final months of last season, including the world No.59 qualifying and reaching the last 16 at the Paris Masters.
“We’ve been doing a lot of on-court work based off what the stats say work on my game,” Popyrin told News Corp.
“How can you go wrong doing that? If the numbers say something, then it’s true.”
Popyrin, a former world junior No.2 who won the 2017 French Open boys’ title, has demonstrated his big-match potential with four round-of-32 appearances at senior grand slams already.
His scalps last year included Jannik Sinner, David Goffin, Marin Cilic – en route to his maiden ATP title in Singapore 11 months ago – Grigor Dimitrov, Reilly Opelka and even de Minaur in a 6-0 6-3 rout.
Perhaps, one of Popyrin’s best moments came in a loss, when he held two set points against Rafael Nadal at his French Open fortress.
He also pushed US Open champion Daniil Medvedev in a tight three-setter at the Miami Masters.
“I’ve got the game to be able to beat them,” Popyrin said.
“I’ve got to keep putting the work in and keep learning from those experiences, because, for example, playing (Daniil) Medvedev in Miami was a massive one for me.
“It opened my eyes and I told myself that I can actually beat the No.2 player in the world – I was two games away from beating him, so anything can happen.”
The challenge is performing like that more consistently, something that would help again put him on the same pedestal as other emerging stars such as Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz.
“They’re younger than me and higher ranked, so they deserve to be spoken about,” Popyrin said.
“They’re both unbelievable players and I came off the court against Alcaraz (last year) and told his coach, ‘That kid is something else’.
“That kid hits the ball so hard – like, the hardest I have played – and I think he’s got the potential to be No.1.”
But closer to home, as the Australian Open advertisement asks: “Is this the year the Pop goes boom?”
O’Shannessy believes Popyrin, who split his pre-season between Marbella and Dubai, is closer than even he knows.
“His game is a big game – it’s big serves and big forehands. But when he can’t hit that shot; that ball needs to go in play. That’s what’s going to take him to the next level,” O’Shannessy said.
“It’s cutting out the looseness, because he has the weapons in order to take that next step.
“It’s either a combination of the weapon is misfiring, or the shots around the weapon are missing too much –and that’s where we’re at.
“That’s the goal of this year; to tidy those things up and to present a complete package, not a package that is flashy but inconsistent.”
Popyrin’s first aim this year is to make his top-50 debut, but he thinks it is also “quite realistic” that he could take over as the standard-bearer for Australian men’s tennis.
“To be the No.1 Aussie is a dream of mine,” he said.
“ ‘Demon’ (de Minaur) and ‘Ducks’ (James Duckworth), who are in front of me right now, are really good tennis players and they are bound to have a good year with the work that they put in.
“But it’s definitely on my agenda to be No.1 in Australia, and also in the world (one day).
“I remember how happy I was when I got my first Australian point and was ranked 1999. I was going around school and telling all the kids that I’m ranked in Australia.
“To now be third-ranked in Australia, if you look at it that way, it’s actually a pretty good achievement, but you know the work keeps going and I’m going to try and get to that No.1 spot.”
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