Shapovalov soars to first final since 2022 in Belgrade

pa href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/denis-shapovalov/su55/overview'Denis Shapovalov/a continued his dominant a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/belgrade/4787/overview'Belgrade Open/a run on Friday to advance to his first ATP Tour final since his Viennanbsp;runner-up finish in October 2022. The Canadian qualifier eased to a 6-2, 6-1 victory against fourth seed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/jiri-lehecka/l0bv/overview'Jiri Lehecka/a to advance to his seventh tour-level final and his fifth on indoor hard courts./p

pThe 25-year-old has lost just one set and one break point in his four main-draw victories this week. With an aggressive game plan in the semi-finals, he did not allow Lehecka a break chance, winning 96 per cent (25/26) of his first-serve points, according to Infosys ATP Stats./p

p"Against a guy like Jiri, if you don't go after him, he's going to dictate the court," Shapovalov said after spoiling the Czech's 23rd birthday. "So for sure I was trying to play my game, play aggressive, really take it to him from the beginning."/p

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pUp 17 places to No. 61 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings this week, Shapovalov will move to the brink of the Top 50 if he can beat home favourite a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/hamad-medjedovic/m0jf/overview'Hamad Medjedovic/a in their first Lexus ATP Head2Head matchup in Saturday's final. The Canadian will be playing for his second ATP Tour title (Stockholm 2019)./p

blockquote class="twitter-tweet"

p lang="en" dir="ltr"... and then there were ✌️a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BelgradeOpen?src=hashamp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"#BelgradeOpen/a a href="https://t.co/mrTjBAWLEW"pic.twitter.com/mrTjBAWLEW/a/p

mdash; ATP Tour (@atptour) a href="https://twitter.com/atptour/status/1854968461732241442?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"November 8, 2024/a/blockquote

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pMedjedovic advanced to his first tour-level final by coming through an all-Serbian battle against a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/laslo-djere/db63/overview'Laslo Djere/a, 6-2, 3-6, 7-6(2). The Belgrade wild card won the title at the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/next-gen-atp-finals/7696/overview'Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF/a last year and is seeking to once again close his season with a trophy./p

pThe 21-year-old is the third-youngest Serbian to reach his first ATP Tour final after a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/novak-djokovic/d643/overview'Novak Djokovic/a (Amersfoort 2006) and a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/miomir-kecmanovic/ki95/overview'Miomir Kecmanovic/a (Antalya 2019) both played their first finals at 19./p

pWhile Medjedovic will enjoy the backing of his home crowd in Saturday's championship match, Shapovalov has also felt plenty of support from the Serbian fans this week./p

p"I didn't know I had so many Serbian fans," the Canadian said. "I think it's because I lose to Novak every time, so maybe they like me!"/p

p[NEWSLETTER FORM]/p