The Shanghai Masters 2025, regardless of how it ends on Sunday, will be remembered as one of the most surprising Masters 1,000 of all-time, and proof that men's tennis is not all the time a two or three horse race. Few could have predicted that 30-year-old French player Arthur Rinderknech, ranked 54 in the world, would surpass top players like World No. 3 Alexander Zverev, Jiri Lehecka, Felix Auger-Aliassime, and finally Daniil Medvedev for the final at the Chinese Masters 1,000, the biggest final in his career.
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But what absolutely nobody expected was that Rinderknech's cousin, the Monegasque Valentin Vacherot who almost didn't qualify for the tournament, would be his rival in the final, eliminating Holger Rune in quarter-finals and even Novak Djokovic: it already was the first semi-final ever for Vacherot, a player that started the competition ranked 204 in the world and will end, at the very least, as World No. 58 as a finalist in Shanghai.
To reach this far, Vacherot defeated maybe the best player of all time, Novak Djokovic, who has been suffering pain and discomfort all the tournament, and asked for several medical timeout, with pain in his hips. Vacherot, reading the room, didn't celebrate when he won, despite the huge achievement, but Djokovic sportingly congratulated, saying that he deserved it.
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Vacherot has already become the lowest ranked player to ever reach a Masters 1000 final in the Open Era (since 1990), surpassing Andrey Pavel, World No. 191 in Paris Masters 2003. Will he also become the lowest-ranked Masters champion? That record is currently held by Borna Ćorić, ranked 152 in Cincinnati 2022.
In front of him is his cousin Rinderknech, who has also never won an ATP title, and only reached another final, an Adelaide International 250 in 2022. Whoever wins, the title stays in the family...
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