{"id":629926,"date":"2025-12-13T09:35:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T09:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/629926\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T09:35:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T09:35:19","slug":"unlikely-tennis-champ-beats-draper-to-award-picked-by-murray-and-ex-no-1s-tennis-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/629926\/","title":{"rendered":"Unlikely tennis champ beats Draper to award picked by Murray and ex-No.1s | Tennis | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Valentin Vacherot has won Breakthrough of the Year in the 2025 ATP Awards after his incredible run to the Shanghai Masters title<\/a>. The Monegasque player beat out Britain\u2019s Jack Draper<\/a> and young stars Joao Fonseca<\/a> and Jakub Mensik to clinch the award. All 29 former and current ATP world No. 1s – including the likes of Andy Murray<\/a> and Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> – got to choose their winner from the four-man shortlist, and Vacherot came out on top.<\/p>\n

Vacherot\u2019s Shanghai campaign was a fairytale. The 27-year-old was still outside of the qualifying draw when he landed in China ahead of the tournament. Ranked down at No. 204 in the world, he got into qualifying and won the preliminary rounds to make it into the main draw.<\/p>\n

There, he went on a tear, upsetting the likes of Alexander Bublik<\/a>, Holger Rune<\/a>, and Novak Djokovic<\/a> on his way to the final<\/a>. And the championship match was extra special, as Vacherot faced his own cousin<\/a> – then-world No.54 Arthur Rinderknech, who had also pulled off some big upsets during the fortnight.<\/p>\n

Vacherot came from a set down to win 4-6 6-3 6-3, becoming the lowest-ranked Masters 1000 champion in history. He was also the first player from Monaco to win an ATP Tour singles title, and shot straight up into the world\u2019s top 40. He had previously never even cracked the top 100.<\/p>\n

The Shanghai Masters champion didn\u2019t stop there, as he reached the quarter-finals of the Paris Masters just a few weeks later, beating his cousin Rinderknech again. Vacherot cracked the top 30 and has now dropped slightly back to No. 31 in the world, guaranteeing that he will be seeded at next month\u2019s Australian Open<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After claiming the Breakthrough award, Vacherot said: \u201cI\u2019m super happy to have won the Breakthrough of the Year award for the 2025 season. It\u2019s such an amazing achievement for myself and for the whole team, and it\u2019s the product of all the work we have put in all these years.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll this work came into the light a little bit in October in Shanghai and Paris, and now I have my highest ranking. I\u2019m really happy to have won the award and hopefully this will bring many more for the following years. Thanks again to the ATP and see you in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

British No. 1 Draper was also nominated in the same category. Draper picked up his first two titles in 2024 and cracked the world\u2019s top 15, and he picked up exactly where he left off this season. The 23-year-old reached the Doha final and then went on a statement run in Indian Wells, beating Taylor Fritz<\/a>, Ben Shelton<\/a>, Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>, and Holger Rune to win his biggest career title, also making his top-10 debut. He finished runner-up in Madrid and reached a career-high ranking of No. 4 before injuries ended his season early.<\/p>\n

Fonseca and Mensik, who both featured in last year\u2019s Next Gen ATP Finals event for top players aged 20 and under, rounded out the shortlist. Fonseca started the year ranked outside of the world\u2019s top 140 and ended it as the world No. 24. The Brazilian teenager qualified for the Australian Open in January and, on his Grand Slam debut, stunned ninth seed Andrey Rublev. He went on to win titles in Buenos Aires and Basel.<\/a><\/p>\n

Mensik, meanwhile, rose from the top 60 to a career-high of No. 16 in the world, and now sits at No. 19. His big breakthrough came at the Miami Open, where he upset Draper, Fritz and Djokovic to be crowned a Masters 1000 champion – his first tour-level title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Valentin Vacherot has won Breakthrough of the Year in the 2025 ATP Awards after his incredible run to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[195007,5005,35716,25761,79,1068,5838,16,15,162969],"class_list":{"0":"post-629926","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-atp-awards","9":"tag-jack-draper","10":"tag-jakub-mensik","11":"tag-joao-fonseca","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-tennis","14":"tag-tennis-news","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-valentin-vacherot"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115711582265893007","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}