Denis Shapovalov from Richmond Hill turned 18 in April. Tonight, he will compete in the Semi Finals at the Rogers Cup in Montreal, an ATP tournament. On Thursday night, Shapovalov managed the unthinkable – he defeated Rafa Nadal in a three set thriller. Nadal entered the match with the #1 seeding at the tournament and a #2 ranking in the overall world standings. Furthermore, Nadal entered the Rogers Cup with the opportunity to reclaim the world’s #1 ranking with a strong enough showing, needing to reach the semi finals. After a third round exit at the hands of Shapovalov, Nadal will remain #2.

Shapovalov came into this week’s Rogers Cup outside of the world’s top 100 ranking (#143), a feat he is chasing and making wonderful progress on this week. He may be ranked as high as #66 after this week even without a win tonight. He became a name in Canadian tennis in 2006 after capturing the Wimbledon Jr Singles title. Still, he has been constantly in the shadow of Milos Raonic who has ranked as high as #3 in the world and competed in a Wimbledon Final. This week however, Raonic was hurt in practice earlier in the week and unable to get anything going, bowing out early and leaving the stage open for Shapovalov to thrill the home crowd. He has managed to save four match points this week to stay alive in the tournament.

When Wayne Gretzky comes to see you play, you must be good. Gretzky has been in the crowd watching many of Shapovalov’s matches in Montreal and was in the stands for the Canadian’s miraculous victory against Nadal. After losing the first set 6-3 to Nadal things did not look well for Shapovalov but on the strength of a booming forehand he managed to win the final two sets 6-4 and 7-6(4). Watch the final point, and Shapovalov’s reaction here. Given the historic night he had Thursday not many expected Shapovalov to compete in the same form on Friday night against France’s Adrian Mannarino. Shapovalov started very sluggishly, dropping the first set very quickly after falling behind 4-0. However, after a rain delay in the 2nd set, Shapovalov returned to the court a different man and won the second and third sets to take the victory and propel himself into a semi final match-up against Germany’s Alexander Zverev.

Shapovalov is the youngest ever ATP Masters semi finalist, with records beginning in 1990 (nine years before he was born). Zverev is 20 and coming of a string of excellent play, 8-0 in the last 10 days. The other semi final sees tennis great Roger Federer take on Robin Hasse. You can watch all of the action tonight at 8 p.m. We look forward to it.

In case you missed it, check out our profile of Canadian rugby star Magali Harvey, and as always, visit us at A Higher Vantage for all the latest.

UPDATE: While Shapovalov lost to Zverev in the semi finals, it is believe he will be ranked #66 in the world when this week’s rankings are announced, making it that much easier for him to gain entry into weekly tournaments.

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