Valentin Vacherot looks back on leap from Challenger Tour to Shanghai triumph in Paris

Valentin Vacherot brought the flow state that helped him capture the Rolex Shanghai Masters to Paris for the final Masters 1000 tournament of the 2025 season, dropping just four games to upset No. 13 seed Jiri Lehecka, 6-1, 6-3.

“Everything I’ve been living the past two-three weeks helps a lot for me to have no nerves,” Vacherot told Prakash Amritraj in his visit to the Tennis Channel Desk.

The 26-year-old has taken a hero’s journey towards the top of the men’s game this fall, going from a college standout at Texas A&M University to an ATP Challenger Tour stalwart before roaring to the biggest title of his career in Shanghai.

“I think the tournament changed when I beat [Alexander] Bublik in the second round,” recalled Vacherot, who had to pass through two rounds of qualifying just to make it into the Shanghai main draw. “I think it was just about focusing on myself because that was working in the first matches. I kept doing the same thing over and over and it kept working. There was nothing to change, all about focusing on myself and adapting during the matches because I was playing such good guys for the first time in my life. I knew it wasn’t going to work this good every time, but for this one, it worked pretty well.”

Vacherot went on to score back-to-back wins over Holger Rune and Novak Djokovic, ultimately winning a fairytale final against cousin Arthur Rinderknech. The match against Djokovic, a 24-time Grand Slam champion, is one the rising Monegasque star won’t soon forget.

“It was already surreal to be on the court against him, once I stepped on court almost all the nerves left because I just wanted to have so much fun out there. I wasn’t thinking I wasn’t supposed to be here, but I know that if people told me two weeks before I would be in the round of 16, quarterfinals, I would have said they were a bit crazy! But it helped me so much to be a bit stress-free. I was playing so well!”

Now up to No. 40 in the ATP rankings, Vacherot credits the grind of the ATP Challenger Tour with helping prepare him for this slew of Masters successes.

“The depth is unreal through No. 300, 350,” claimed Vacherot. “I’m not saying everyone plays the same level but it’s pretty close. The Challenger level is so tough. There’s not one easy match. It’s the same here, of course, but the Challenger level, I feel, is the same. It shows on my record. I made a lot of semifinals and quarterfinals this year but couldn’t really push through for a title or a final. So, maybe I just needed to go on the big tour to do it!”

A fixture on the “big tour” for the foreseeable future, Vacherot’s dreamy month continues in the second round where he’ll face cousin Rinderknech for the second time in three weeks. Rinderknech edged past Hungary’s Fabian Marozsan in a pair of tiebreakers on Monday.