Hubert Hurkacz jokes that he hopes Roger Federer won't take Shanghai Masters victory speech omission 'personally'

ByJames Walker-Roberts

Published 15/10/2023 at 16:07 GMT

Hubert Hurkacz won the second Masters title of his career as he beat Andrey Rublev to triumph in Shanghai. The match was watched by one of the all-time tennis greats, Roger Federer, and Hurkacz noted afterwards that he forgot to thank the 20-time Grand Slam champion for attending. Both Hurkacz and Rublev also spoke about their aims to qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin.

Hubert Hurkacz joked that he hoped Roger Federer “won’t take it personally” after he forgot to thank him in his victory speech at the Shanghai Masters.

Hurkacz saved a match point to beat Andrey Rublev in a thrilling final in Shanghai. It was Hurkacz’s second Masters title of his career and sees him join Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic and Federer as a singles champion in Shanghai.

Federer was in attendance at the final but didn’t get a mention in Hurkacz’s on-court speech – an omission the new champion remembered in his post-match press conference.

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“There are so many champions who won it in the past and so many amazing players and in my speech I was trying to thank everyone. I forgot to mention Roger, thanks for coming,” said Hurkacz.

“Hopefully, he won't take it personally! But definitely fun to play in front of him. Hopefully he enjoyed it a little bit.”

Hurkacz’s win is set to see him move up to No. 11 in the world rankings. It also boosts his chances of qualifying for the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin.

He is now 11th in the Race to Turin standings, just 335 points behind Holger Rune, who currently occupies the final qualifying spot.

“Coming to this couple of weeks starting here in Shanghai I knew I [had] to give myself a chance, I need to be winning tournaments, so that's a pretty good start,” said Hurkacz of his Turin hopes.

• Hurkacz beats Rublev to win Shanghai Masters
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“I mean, just an amazing week here in Shanghai. I really enjoyed it here with the team, but ultimately, we just want to get better every single day and improve, enjoy those moments, but we're just going to try our best and then just keep fighting and keep competing.”

Hurkacz is now 7-1 in ATP Tour finals after holding off Rublev to triumph.

He said about the match: “Andrey was playing some really good tennis, and I knew I had to produce the shots, so I was just trying to stay out there and compete as hard as I could and to keep positive self-talk and then keep the belief until the end.

“At the end of the day, it's a final, and you want to just give it all you got out there.”

While Hurkacz is pushing for a spot in Turin, Rublev looks almost assured of getting in.

He is back up to No. 5 in the world rankings and is also fifth in the Race to Turin standings with a healthy advantage over sixth-placed Stefanos Tsitsipas.

Andrey Rublev missed out on a second Masters title of 2023

Image credit: Getty Images

“The goal is to qualify to Turin, so hopefully, I will be able to show a great game in Vienna and Paris, and we’ll see if I will make it to Turin or not,” he said.

“And if I will make it, then I have one more tournament.”

Rublev also took plenty of positives from his tournament in Shanghai despite just missing out on a second Masters title of the year.

“The positive things I can take, the level that I was playing all this tournament, that I did one more final of 1000 Masters, which is not happening always,” he said.

“So those things I can take for sure as a positive thing to keep basically working the same way because the last months, I felt that I’m doing everything right, I’m playing well, it’s just matter of time when I will be able to show this game on the tournament.

“Shanghai was the first tournament where I was able to show this kind of level on a tournament, so hopefully, I will keep on improving and keep showing this level during the rest of the season.”

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