Denis Shapovalov in 2025: Biggest Career Title, Back to the Top 25, Ultimately a Disappointing Year

2025 was a mixed bag for Denis Shapovalov; his ranking went up exponentially after two truly horrible seasons in 2023 and 2024 saw him fall out of the Top 100 and he won his biggest career title to date in Dallas, but his trademark inconsistency plagued him as usual, and he was unable to get any big results at the biggest events–while seeing his countryman Felix Auger-Aliassime reach a Slam semifinal, a Masters 1000 final, and go up to #5 in the rankings. This year was an improvement but still very far from what Shapovalov was once expected to be.

A poor start
After winning Belgrade at the end of 2024, Shapovalov was unable to ride that momentum into the first month of 2025, losing his first match of the year in routine fashion to a far-past-his-prime Kei Nishikori in Hong Kong, his second match in Adelaide to Marcos Giron and the second round at the Australian Open in straight sets to Lorenzo Musetti (after a good win over Bautista Agut in the first round). It was far from an ideal start for the Canadian.

Biggest career title
The highlight of Shapovalov’s year came without a doubt at the beginning of February in Dallas. The Canadian beat three Top 10 players in Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul, and finally Casper Ruud in the final to win his first ever ATP 500 title. Those were his first Top 10 wins since 2022 and a glimpse into the level many thought he could achieve when he broke through as a teenager almost a decade ago now.

There was some hope that he might follow up this run and have a real breakthrough but it wasn’t to be. The next few tournaments were decent; he went up to #28 in the world with a semifinal run in Acapulco, where he lost in two tiebreaks to Alejandro Dadidovich Fokina, and then lost to Top 5 players in Carlos Alcaraz and Taylor Fritz in Indian Wells and Miami. But what followed was nothing short of a disaster.

Disaster on natural surfaces
On clay, Shapovalov won only two matches (and lost five) and got bounced out of Roland Garros as a seed to #153 Filip Misolic. On grass, the surface where he got his best ever Slam results (a semifinal at Wimbledon 2021) more was expected but it was actually even worse: only one win (albeit against a good grass court player in Ugo Humbert) and an absolutely shocking loss to a clay specialist in Mariano Navone in the first round of Wimbledon. After playing his best tennis in a long time in Dallas, Shapovalov looked back to his 2023/2024 level, losing early to low-ranked players tournament after tournament.

Title run in Los Cabos
The second highlight of Shapovalov’s season came in July in Los Cabos, where, after a dreadful few months, he won the most dominant title of his career, not dropping a single set and only losing 18 games in eight sets (no tiebreaks) en route to the title. He didn’t face anyone ranked higher than #76, but he still played fantastic tennis and surely made tennis fans dream again, even if only for a short while.

A disappointing US hard court season
Fresh off his dominant Los Cabos run, there were high expectations for Shapovalov ahead of his home Masters 1000 event in Canada, especially with the likes of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner not playing. But as has always been the case in his career, the Canadian failed to live up to those expectations and got bounced in his first match against Learner Tien in straight sets. He then lost again in the first round in Cincinnati to Luca Nardi, losing all the confidence and momentum he had gained in Los Cabos ahead of the US Open.

He actually had a good US Open though, getting to the third round and putting up some very good resistance against Jannik Sinner (then #1 and eventual finalist); ultimately the Italian’s far superior consistency made the difference in his favor but it was a performance that once again showed Shapovalov’s potential to achieve much more than he has in his career.

Lackluster end to the season
Once again, Shapovalov was unable to build on his US Open performance and ended the season in quite disappointing fashion; he had two decent runs in Stockholm (semifinals) and Basel (quarterfinals) but both ended with disappointing losses to Casper Ruud and João Fonseca, two opponents he was in theory favored against indoors. He then lost again to the Brazilian teenager in Paris to end his season.

Given his extreme inconsistency, it’s hard to predict what 2026 has in store for Shapovalov, but what is certain is that at 26 years old the time is starting to run out for the Canadian if he ever wants to do something really big in the sport. 2026 will be a huge year for him, one that could make or break his career.