{"id":230113,"date":"2025-10-28T13:03:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T13:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/230113\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T13:03:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T13:03:09","slug":"valentin-vacherot-lived-a-tennis-fairytale-now-comes-the-rest-of-his-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/230113\/","title":{"rendered":"Valentin Vacherot lived a tennis fairytale. Now comes the rest of his career"},"content":{"rendered":"

Forgive Valentin Vacherot<\/a> if he can\u2019t wipe the gleaming grin from his face, even when he answers the simplest of questions.<\/p>\n

How are you?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m good!\u201d he exclaimed over a video call from Basel, Switzerland, where he was beginning the next phase of his new life as a top-40 men\u2019s tennis player. \u201cHappy to be here!\u201d<\/p>\n

The word \u201chere\u201d is performing many tasks, all of them pretty big.<\/p>\n

Three weeks ago, Vacherot was world No. 204, a 26-year-old from Monaco whose tennis future appeared to hold a lot more toiling in the the sport\u2019s minor leagues. Now he is the world No. 39 and the reigning ATP Shanghai Masters 1000 champion<\/a>. His is the tennis Cinderella story of the decade in the men\u2019s game.<\/p>\n

Had things gone in Shanghai as they have the past few seasons for Vacherot, he would have spent the rest of October bouncing around some Challenger Tour events. Instead, he has gone from Basel to Paris, for the last ATP Masters 1000<\/a> of the year, where he eased past Czech world No. 18 Ji\u0159\u00ed Lehe\u010dka 6-1, 6-3 in his opening match. The reward is his second match against his cousin, Arthur Rinderknech, in three tournaments, after they met in the Shanghai Masters final.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m here as if I were a child and thinking how wonderful it is to be here, so it\u2019s very wonderful,\u201d Vacherot said during his post-match news conference in Paris.<\/p>\n

A couple of days before he arrived in Switzerland, Vacherot was celebrating his title at a homecoming reception with Prince Albert of Monaco.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how he rolls now, this talker who is free with his emotions and who is glad to have people asking him about them on and off the tennis court, something that has rarely happened before. The next part is keeping his nearly out-of-nowhere triumph in perspective, and embracing the work he must do if he has any hope of building on his success.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor my career everything changed,\u201d Vacherot says, his stringy brown mop of hair falling across his forehead. \u201cMaybe a little bit how people look at me. But I mean, me, myself, nothing is changing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vacherot\u2019s success wasn\u2019t merely his own. It also belonged to Monaco, the principality on the Mediterranean Sea that has a defense agreement with France and a population of about 40,000. Most of them are transplants, who have moved to Monte Carlo for the weather, the luxurious lifestyle and the tax advantages.<\/p>\n

About 10,000 people who live in Monaco are natives, the Mon\u00e9gasques. Before Vacherot, not one of them had won an ATP singles title. As Vacherot marched through the qualifying draw in Shanghai having arrived as an alternate, and then through the main draw to the title, beating 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic along the way, it felt like all of Monaco was following his matches from the first ball to the last.<\/p>\n

And when he and his family and Monaco\u2019s tennis big-wigs arrived home, the celebrations kept going.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot much sleep since this crazy weekend and it just doesn\u2019t stop,\u201d said M\u00e9lanie-Antoinette de Massy, the president of the Mon\u00e9gasque Tennis Federation. \u201cVery good problems to have.\u201d<\/p>\n

For de Massy, Vacherot\u2019s win was personal. She has known him since he was a small child. She was close with his half-brother, Benjamin Balleret, who is a former tennis player and now serves as his coach. De Massy\u2019s family was so close to the Ballerets that sometimes, when his parents would travel, they would leave their son with de Massy\u2019s grandmother for the weekend.<\/p>\n

Vacherot\u2019s parents were players as well, and he grew up hanging around the Monte Carlo Country Club, which de Massy oversees, along with the annual Monte Carlo Masters. For a tennis-loving kid, it\u2019s not a bad place to grow up. Roughly 25 of the top 50 players live in Monaco. The Monte Carlo Country Club is their home club and training base. A talented junior like Vacherot got plenty of exposure to pros like Grigor Dimitrov and Daniil Medvedev. Occasionally, he\u2019d warm them up when tournament time rolled around.<\/p>\n

That said, Vacherot was hardly a can\u2019t-miss talent when he was growing up. It was his cousin, Rinderknech, who paved the path into professional tennis that would wind to them standing together on the stage in Shanghai, tears in their eyes. To get there, they would go via Texas.<\/p>\n

\"Valentin<\/p>\n

\n Valentin Vacherot and Arthur Rinderknech were emotional during their trophy presentation at the Shanghai Masters. (Jade Gao \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

A dozen years ago, Steve Denton, a touring pro from the 1970s and 1980s who became the head men\u2019s coach at the state\u2019s A&M university in College Station, heard about some promising players in France. He travelled to Europe to take a look at them, with a special interest in Rinderknech. He knew Rinderknech\u2019s mother, Virginia, who had been a good player herself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI watched Arthur for two minutes and I told Virginia, give him to me, let me have him and I\u2019ll help him to be a really good player,\u201d Denton said in an interview from Texas. \u201cI saw how athletic he was. I saw how well he moved, his big game and the potential. And the other thing I saw from him was his flexibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arthur had been in College Station for about year when he approached his coach with some useful information.<\/p>\n

\u201cSteve-O, he says, I got a cousin that\u2019s just as good as I am, or maybe even better, and he\u2019ll come to A&M,\u201d Denton recalled. Back to Europe Denton went, to eyeball Vacherot at the French junior championships in Le Mans.<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably the easiest recruit that I\u2019ve ever had,\u201d Denton said. Vacherot said that the decision to move was just as easy. His cousin was there, and he trusted Denton, who taught him how to play on a hard court after spending most of his childhood on clay.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t an amazing player in juniors,\u201d Vacherot said. \u201cI was already really tall but not developed physically, not developed mentally. I just became an actual athlete and got myself perfectly ready for the tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still Vacherot was a project, \u201ca baby giraffe at the beginning,\u201d Denton said. \u201cHe\u2019s tall and lanky but you know, not much muscle yet. And so we had to mold his game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vacherot had a typical big serve and forehand, but Denton saw something else: He was never afraid to go for his shots. That fearlessness was a hallmark of his run to the title at the Shanghai Masters, in which he won six of his nine matches from a set down.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s his his greatest trait,\u201d Denton said. \u201cWhen he\u2019s gotten into these tournaments, he\u2019s gone after it and obviously that\u2019s paid great dividends.\u201d<\/p>\n

That second part about tournaments is key. Balleret outlined that Vacherot had spent longer than he might have done in the lower reaches of the tennis world because he could not go after it all the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cVal basically is better against the better opponent,\u201d Balleret said in a mixed zone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m with him every week. I know that when he plays, when he enters the court, that\u2019s the big problem he had lately. When he enters the court, and he\u2019s the favorite, he is going less for the ball. \u2018Maybe I put the ball in, that\u2019s enough,\u2019 you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Rinderknech and Vacherot spent the better part of five years in Texas. Rinderknech majored in business and Vacherot in sports management, all while studying in a second language.<\/p>\n

Vacherot became a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of assistant coach Kevin O\u2019Shea, who would spend hours on the court working with him, seemingly whenever he needed the individual attention. The matches were intense and rowdy, filled with the pressure of winning for the team and the school.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything is made so easy for you,\u201d he said. Fitness, tennis, nutrition, everything was just so easy as an athlete over there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, the time came to head back to real life. Then Vacherot hit the ATP Challenger Tour, slowly making his way last year to the cusp of the top 100, that barrier separating tour players, who can scratch out a small living by getting into the Grand Slam main draws, from everyone else trying simply to break even.<\/p>\n

But he suffered a shoulder injury at the 2024 French Open, which set him back for much of the rest of the year. This past summer at Wimbledon, he was up 6-4, 6-5 in his opening qualifying match. But he didn\u2019t really know how to run on grass, and he slipped and hurt his knee.<\/p>\n

In retrospect, he thinks his game was ready for playing pro-level players all the time, but his body was not. The injuries may have provided a silver lining, giving him a chance to improve physically and time to grow even hungrier.<\/p>\n

Still, the results weren\u2019t coming. Then he got to Shanghai and one win rolled into the next.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you just believe in yourself,\u201d he said of the early wins. He beat Alexander Bublik, the No. 14 seed, then Tom\u00e1\u0161 Mach\u00e1\u010d retired in the second set of their match. He beat Tallon Griekspoor, then Holger Rune, then faced a worn-down Djokovic and recorded his only straight-sets win of the whole week. Then came the final against Rinderknech, another three-setter and another comeback and then the tears.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know I\u2019m not going to do it every single tournament, we know how tennis is,\u201d he said ahead of the Basel Swiss Indoors, shortly before losing a three-setter to Taylor Fritz, the world No. 5, in which his whippy forehand\u2019s limited repeatability put him under too much pressure. But he knows things now he did not know a few weeks back, and there is plenty to enjoy. For a player who goes on a run like Vacherot\u2019s, especially near the end of the season, the next one is a land of opportunity, with next-to-no rankings points to defend. That was on display against Lehe\u010dka, who entered on the back of a loose defeat in Basel and never got any kind of rhythm,<\/p>\n

Managing the schedule of that season will be crucial. Earn enough points across it to balance the possibility of a first-round loss in Shanghai, with 1,000 of them on the line, but without playing so much that by the time October rolls around, Vacherot is as leggy and burnt-out as some of the players that he conquered this year.<\/p>\n

One stood out.<\/p>\n

\u201cDjokovic has won 24 Grand Slams. I think he wants to win the 25th one,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to win more and maybe in next few years, we go for a Grand Slam. And even if my next title is an ATP 250, I haven\u2019t won one. So I want to just win more titles.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Forgive Valentin Vacherot if he can\u2019t wipe the gleaming grin from his face, even when he answers the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-230113","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}