The tennis world has yet to come out of the shocking exit of Carlos Alcaraz after falling to Dutchman Botic van de Zandschulp. Amid that, the night after brought yet another unthinkable match that saw defending US Open champion Novak Djokovic lose out to Australian sensation Alexei Popyrin in the third-round match (6-4, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4). This adds to Popyrin’s stellar year, which has seen him claiming a dominant victory at the Canadian Open Masters just three weeks back. So who is behind shaping this up? Or, better to say who ARE!

Listening to two voices on a tennis court is something the world considers confusing. While there have been moments in the past where in-match guidance was seen turning into a distraction for the players, other examples have proved how it could be beneficial. For Alexei Popyrin, the motivation and unbeatable tactics come from not just one but two bright tennis minds. Here’s everything to know about how the Australian ATP star decided to onboard two coaches and how it worked for him.

Alexei Popyrin’s recent success at the Canadian Open Masters came out to be the breakthrough moment in his career. The ATP star became the first Australian to win an ATP Masters 1000 title since Lleyton Hewitt in 2003. Popyrin secured top-10 wins over Andrey Rublev, Hubert Hurkacz, and Grigor Dimitrov and another two victories over top 20-ranked rivals Seb Korda and Ben Shelton. All these came after a first-round win over Tomas Machac in the best performance of his career. This boosted his ranking like anything.

Before the tournament in Montreal, he was ranked outside the top 60 in the world. After winning 6 matches in a row, the Aussie jumped 39 places in the rankings and secured a seeded position at the upcoming US Open. This also marked the first time that the 25-year-old was seeded (28th seed) at a Grand Slam tournament. Besides his own efforts to get things done, Popyrin never forgets to mention the role of his coach duo, Neville Godwin and Xavier Malisse. Let us hear it from him.

“My two coaches have been unbelievable for me, Neville Godwin and Xavier Malisse. They kind of flipped my game upside down and mentally helped me get back on the right track after my very disappointing year in 2022,” he said to the AO Show Weekly after his win in Montreal.

Known as “X-Man,” Xavier Malisse is a former professional player from Belgium. The retired ATP pro reached his career-high ranking of No. 19 in the world, having the experience of navigating the competitive road himself. Besides this, his other major achievement was reaching the semifinals at Wimbledon in 2002 and therefore developed a vision that now shines on Popyrin’s team.

Neville Godwin, on the other side, is a former professional player from South Africa. His best Grand Slam performance was reaching the third round of the Australian Open in 1997. Godwin has also coached top players like Kevin Anderson and won the 2017 Coach of the Year Award. Together, Godwin and Malisse have helped Popyrin make significant improvements to his game. Popyrin believes this has been key to his recent success. One important component of that has been quite a lot of hard work.

“It’s a lot of weights, sort of capacity building, capacity training that my coach likes to say (is about) getting the muscles and body strong enough to be able to sustain long time on court, and about trying to get more explosiveness out of it, which I feel like has been coming along quite, quite well,” Popyrin had said to Fox Sports ahead of his match against Djokovic.

Lauding his coaches further for this, he had added, “I do enjoy being surrounded by people who are knowledgeable and really want to help you, and that’s the kind of people that I surrounded myself with.” That has visibly given him the outcomes he was looking for.

Before this win, Popyrin was 0-3 against Djokovic. They first faced each other in the round of 32 match in 2019 at the ATP 500 in Tokyo. Djokovic defeated Popyrin 6-3 6-2 on that occasion. This year they met twice in the Australian Open (round of 64) and Wimbledon (round of 32). Although he lost both matches, he took the matches to four sets and only some points away from stretching Djoker the distance on both occasions. That injected the confidence in him that he could do better against the legend and he knew how important it was.

“It’s so amazing to be able to play tennis when you’re high on confidence,” Popyrin said. “To be able to step on court and feel like you’re able to produce any shot or do anything, that’s a feeling that you try and keep forever.” With his confidence growing and stage advancing at the US Open now, Popyrin hopes to use this duo’s strength as a stepping stone to achieve a notable mark in the ongoing event. However, these two might not be the only ones behind the success of Popyrin.

Alexei Popyrin is blessed with support from legendary tennis figures

Alexei Popyrin has a strong connection with tennis coach Patrick Mouratoglou. He started training at Mouratoglou’s academy in 2017. The French coach, known for guiding top players like Serena Williams and Simona Halep, has helped shape Popyrin’s career as well. Mouratoglou’s academy has also nurtured young talents like Holger Rune, Stefanos Tsitsipas, and Coco Gauff. Now, Popyrin is one of the many tennis stars representing the academy on the Grand Slam stage.

Popyrin’s father, Alex Popyrin, has also worked closely with Mouratoglou. Together, they created the Ultimate Tennis Showdown (UTS) during the COVID-affected 2020 season. The UTS provided a new platform for players to compete when traditional tournaments were disrupted. One more Australian legend, whom Popyrin replicated in the US Open, probably also has his Midas touch in shaping the young prodigy.

The third-round exit of Djokovic, his worst showing at the Flushing Meadows, happened last time in 2006. The legend who brought about that: International Tennis Hall of Famer from Australia, Lleyton Hewitt, currently Australia’s Davis Cup captain, was sitting there in the guest box witnessing history repeating itself.

After Popyrin’s victory in Montreal, Hewitt was one of the first to send a congratulatory message to him. Hewitt is known to have played a role in helping the Sydney-born Aussie change the way to perceive difficult losses, like the one he faced in last year’s Davis Cup to Italian Matteo Arnaldi (7-5 2-6 6-4). With all this mentoring, it would be interesting to find how his progress in the ongoing US Open shapes up.