Popyrin completes his dream in Montreal and takes over from Hewitt!
Alexei Popyrin enjoyed a dream week on the Montreal courts. He defeated Andrey Rublev in two sets (6-2, 6-4) in Monday's final, thanks in particular to a devastating forehand, to claim his first Masters 1000 title and the biggest of his career.
Prior to that, the 25-year-old Australian had beaten Tomas Machac in the 1st round, Ben Shelton in the 2nd round, Grigor Dimitrov in the 3rd round, Hubert Hurkacz in the quarter-finals and Sebastian Korda in the semi-finals. Ranked 62nd in the world, he is the second lowest-ranked player to win the tournament, behind Mikael Pernfors, who was 95th in the world when he won in 1993. Thanks to this title, he moved up 39 places to 23rd in the ATP rankings.
Popyrin also becomes the first Australian to win a Masters 1000 since Lleyton Hewitt 21 years ago (Indian Wells 2002 and 2003). He is the fourth representative of his country to do so, along with Hewitt, Patrick Rafter (Toronto 1998, Cincinnati 1998) and Mark Philippoussis (Indian Wells 1999).
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