The unknown tennis player who, for one day, is more media-friendly than Alcaraz or Djokovic.

BarcelonaIt had never happened before that a tennis player ranked 204th in the ATP rankings was able to win a Masters 1000. But Valentin Vacherot had a sneak peek when he posted a message on social media before the Shanghai tournament saying: "Try to give it your all because you never know when you'll know." Almost no one paid attention to the message because he was still an unknown tennis player representing the Principality of Monaco and he's already 26 years old. He's not a promising youngster. But two weeks later, Vacherot produced one of the tennis news of the season, a fairy tale, because not only did he win the tournament, but he did so by defeating his cousin Arthur Rinderknech in the final in three sets (4-6, 6-3, 6-3). A double surprise, since Rinderknech was ranked 54th before the Chinese event. No one could have ever imagined this family final. And even less so that Vacherot, the underdog, would win.

Vacherot wept with emotion upon winning his first major title after a tournament in which he eliminated Bublik, Machac, Griekspoor, Rune, and a true giant like Djokovic. Rinderknech, who had played in the final of the Adelaide tournament in 2022 and lost, gradually saw off top seeds like Alexander Zverev, Jiri Lehecka, Félix Auger Aliassime, and Daniil Medvedev, but in the final, he felt discomfort and saw how his cousin was the one who lifted the ball. Both could rise significantly in the rankings, with Rinderknech moving into the top 30 and Vacherot among the top 50 players of the moment. The two embraced at the end of a final that pitted members of the same family against each other, but two different nationalities: Vacherot competes as a Monegasque and Rinderknech as a Frenchman. The reason? Well, simple. The Principality of Monaco offered Vacherot the chance to compete with them, and he, aware that he would probably never make it onto the French Davis Cup team, accepted. Unknown to the general public until now, Vacherot is, in fact, French. Born in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, an idyllic village just outside Monaco, he began training at the Monte-Carlo Country Club when he excelled as a tennis player. His father drove him there, a short 15-minute drive across an always-open border. Vacherot grew up in the shadow of his cousin, who had been selected to work at a high-performance center run by the French federation. French coaches followed him, but decided against taking him on.

Born into a family where money was no object, Vacherot studied at the University of Texas for a season before returning home and beginning to compete as a Monegasque when the local federation asked him to. His half-brother, Benjamin Balleret, was already doing so. His second cousin, Chloé Paquet, and cousin Arthur Rinderknech, on the other hand, competed as French players. A well-matched lineage, as seen in Shanghai, as the cousins encouraged each other. When Vacherot defeated Djokovic in the semifinals, Rinderknech celebrated even more than his victory over Medvedev. Djokovic congratulated the Monegasque, who, shy, barely dared to shout with emotion out of respect for the Serb: "You played incredibly well, you deserve it," the former world number 1 told him. In the final, Vacherot made history. To find a similar case, we would have to remember the 2022 milestone in Cincinnati of Croatian Borna Coric, then number 152 in the rankings, who surpassed players such as Rafael Nadal, Felix Auger-Aliassime and Stefanos Tsitsipas before becoming champion.

Vacherot explains that he feels more Monegasque than French, since many of his friends live in the Principality, where he also studied. In fact, his great hobby is going to watch football matches in AS Monaco, to celebrate Ansu Fati's goalsAnd he's already received congratulations from Prince Albert II, a great sports fan and himself an Olympian in bobsleigh. The small principality of 20,000 inhabitants can suddenly boast about having two top-level athletes: F1 driver Charles Leclerc and a Vacherot who, for a few days, was more in the media spotlight than Alcaraz, Sinner, or Djokovic and tripled his social media following. Nobody knew him, and now more than one Frenchman is wondering if it was a mistake to allow him to be naturalized by that small, wealthy neighbor.