Alexander Bublik calls Valentin Vacherot’s Shanghai Masters title ‘failure’ by ATP players

Alexander Bublik has described Valentin Vacherot’s Shanghai Masters title as a collective failure by the rest of the ATP Tour.

“If he’s able to win a Masters, that’s our fault,” Bublik said of the Monégasque, who started the ATP Masters 1000 tournament as the world No. 204, in an interview with Tennis TV.

“All of us, we failed. We didn’t get ready enough for the Masters. That’s all of us, in a way. He cracked, how many top-20 players? Two top-10? He won a Masters. On the other side there’s Arthur (Rinderknech) killing everyone, so I guess it’s question to us.”

Vacherot’s fourth win at the Shanghai tournament (after two in qualifying and one in the main draw) came against Bublik, the 28-year-old Kazakh who has this year won more ATP Tour titles than anyone but Carlos Alcaraz, the world No. 1. Bublik was world No. 17 at the time; Vacherot’s next four wins came against the world Nos. 23, 31, 11, and 5, before he beat Rinderknech, his cousin and the world No. 54, to win the title.

Bublik also said that Vacherot’s title signified how the collective level without Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner is significantly lower. Alcaraz skipped the Shanghai Masters, while world No. 2 Sinner had to retire from his third-round match against Tallon Griekspoor with severe cramps. Vacherot promptly beat Griekspoor in the next round.

Alcaraz and Sinner have formed a duopoly atop men’s tennis in the past three years. Alcaraz is world No. 1, with 11,340 rankings points, and Sinner trails him at No. 2 with 10,000. Ranked third is Germany’s Alexander Zverev, who has 5,930 points — a massive gap between the top two and the rest of the field.

Alcaraz and Sinner have each won four of the last eight Grand Slam tournaments, splitting them evenly. They have won a combined 10 of the last 13 Grand Slams, dating back to 2022. Their absence and early exit respectively in China left the field open for any of the top-20 players to finally take their opportunity to collect silverware.

Instead, Vacherot, from the depths of the 200s rankings, beat three top-20 players, including Bublik, on his way to a Shanghai victory. The others were No. 5 Novak Djokovic and No. 11 Holger Rune.

“Why are we in Shanghai at the end of the season? How many of us have won a lot of titles? How many of us maybe won a couple of Slams, Masters, and we were not able to stop those two guys? That’s the question for us,” Bublik said.