‘My girlfriend and I had three odd superstitions – then I beat Djokovic and won a title’ | Tennis | Sport

Valentin Vacherot became the fairytale story of the recent Shanghai Masters, entering qualifying as the world No. 204 and ending the tournament as the champion. Vacherot stunned three top-20 players, including Novak Djokovic, on his way to becoming the lowest-ranked winner in Masters 1000 history.

It was an unprecedented run for Vacherot, who had won one ATP Tour match coming into the tournament. Naturally, the 26-year-old became superstitious when he started winning. But what he didn’t know was that his girlfriend, Emily Snyder, started implementing some unusual traditions of her own.

Vacherot’s incredible Shanghai Masters story started when he landed in China, still nine spots out of qualifying. He got in thanks to some withdrawals, and was two points away from defeat against Liam Draxl in the final round of quallies before making it into the main draw.

There, he went on a life-changing run, upsetting No. 14 seed Alexander Bublik in the second round. The wins kept coming – he advanced thanks to a mid-match retirement from Tomas Machac, and then beat Tallon Griekspoor, Holger Rune and Djokovic before facing his own cousin, Frenchman Arthur Rinderknech, in the final.

Rinderknech had been busy causing some upsets of his own, taking out the likes of Alexander Zverev, Felix Auger-Aliassime, and Daniil Medvedev. But it was Vacherot who came out on top in the family affair final, rallying from a set down to win 4-6 6-3 6-3.

The Monegasque ace skyrocketed up the rankings to No. 40 in the world, and now sits at a career-high of No. 39. And his girlfriend says his winning ways may have been down to some strange superstitions.

Snyder told the ATP that she used the same tournament every day – something she kept from Vacherot until after the final. It turned out that he’d been doing something similar.

She recalled: “Then he tells me, ‘I’m not even kidding you, I used the same exact shower every single day, twice a day, same shower’.”

They weren’t the only ones sticking to specific routines. Vacherot, Snyder and Benjamin Balleret – Vacherot’s coach and half-brother – also had something of a seating plan in every car they took.

“On the car rides to and from the hotel, me, his coach, we all sat in the same exact seats. We refused to change it. We were like, ‘Okay, routine is working, we’re not going to change anything’,” Snyder added.

They also had a heartwarming routine in place with Rinderknech, Vacherot’s cousin and eventual opponent in the final. The French star was in Shanghai without his coach, so he joined team Vacherot in the evenings.

There were, of course, some superstitions involved – as they headed to the same spot for dinner. “We would go watch Arthur’s match. Arthur’s match would finish. We would go all together to the [same] Italian restaurant because Arthur was only travelling with one other guy,” Snyder explained.

“For a lot of the other matches, Ben – Val’s coach and half brother – would come, and he would sit and almost kind of be like a coach for Arthur, too.”

Since then, Vacherot has had some time to unwind and digest his life-changing victory. He returned home to Monaco for a few days before returning to action at the ATP 500 in Basel. The 26-year-old lost a tight three-set match to top seed Taylor Fritz in the first round, but he’s now been given a wildcard into next week’s Paris Masters.