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Denis Shapovalov on the difference between his wins on Thursday and Friday

“I felt like yesterday was just a longer, more physical match. I started off pretty slow, just drained from yesterday. Rafa took a lot out of me. But Adrian did a good job of playing fast with me in the first set, really taking it to me.
I felt like he was just really solid, wasn’t giving me anything. I felt a little bit rushed. I tried to slow things down in the second. Obviously, the rain delay helped me. During the rain delay, I told myself this could be a really good turning point. It’s giving him a little bit of time to think about his game. He got a little bit cold. It’s always tough to come out and serve after having 11, 12 minutes off.

I knew at that point it could be a turning point. I took advantage there. After I broke him, I kind of felt confident again and I ran with it.”



Shapovalov on what he did after his surprise win over Nadal

“After media, I can’t even remember. Well, I got a massage, worked with my physio and stuff. I went home, saw Félix. Everyone was waiting up. Nobody could sleep. We chatted in the living room for a couple minutes.

I tried to head to sleep around 1 a.m. Didn’t sleep until 3. Tried to put the phone down and go to bed. But it was just, like, a little bit of a struggle.

But I found some sleep. I think I slept until 10 or 11, so I got some pretty good sleep. We decided just to take it easy today since I was cramping a little bit yesterday. It was just a draining match, so we took it easy.”



Martin Laurendeau on Shapovalov’s nerves of steel

“To me, it’s the greatest attribute for a tennis player. If that can be taught, I don’t know how. When someone has those skills, it’s just an incredible gift.

He’s got his identity. He’s got his game style. He’s got the strokes to hurt and he’s got a game that’s taking shape. He’s got a lot of weapons. I think he’s always going to be a guy that takes it to the other guys.”



Alexander Zverev on his next opponent, Denis Shapovalov

“I have a feeling he’s all we’re going to talk about tonight [laughs]. He has done an amazing job of getting to the semis here. He’s so young, he’s playing some amazing tennis. One thing I will say: I know there are a lot of expectations on him right now but he shouldn’t listen too much. That’s what I’m trying to do as well. I know this feeling.

When it was my first time in Hamburg in the semifinals, there was a lot of talk around it. He should maybe shut down his phone. That would be my personal advice to him. I’m going to try to play the best tennis as I can to make it difficult for him and it’ll hopefully be a great match.”



Roger Federer on Shapovalov versus Nadal on Thursday night

“I thought it was a fantastic match. It was exhilarating for the crowd, for the fans watching on TV, for Canadian tennis. That was cool, I’m sure, to watch for a lot of kids, to see you can go beat your hero if you train hard in your life, stay the course. I thought it was great from start to finish.”



Robin Haase who is playing in his first Masters 1000 semifinal at the age of 30

“I always believed I could but I was injured in the early days of my career. I didn’t even know if I could ever play tennis again. After a year and half, I came back. However, from that moment, I wasn’t the player I was before my injury. I was not as fast. I was insecure. I had a lot of problems with other injuries after.

This kind of eats you up inside mentally. It drains you because you know you can do better but actually your own body is not letting you. It took me, honestly, a couple of years to get more calm in my head, to deal with it.

I’ve been working on it a lot in the past few years. I started to believe more and more again. My game is better. Then, I started this year winning back-to-back against really good players. Then, you’re thinking, okay, it might happen again. That it happened is just awesome.”