Denis Shapovalov is content right now, even if he is not winning

Open this photo in gallery:

In order to qualify for Wimbledon, you do so at its sister facility in Roehampton. It’s about a 15-minute drive from one to the other. Roehampton looks nice, but it’s not the All England.

Denis Shapovalov remembers the first time he made the cut as a junior. He was 16 years old. He’d just slugged his way into a grand slam, but he didn’t want to go back to the hotel.

“As soon as I made it, I asked for my [credential],” Shapovalov said recently from Halle, Germany. “We just sat there for, like, two hours, and then we went straight there. It was honestly like a dream. You just don’t get a feel for it through the TV.”

You really don’t. However you think Wimbledon looks in high-def – the depth of the greens and purples, the florals, the beautiful people thronging it – you are seeing a poor simulation. The All-England during Wimbledon is up there with Versailles for its ‘How does this place exist in real life?’ factor. It’s what carelessness about money can do.

Shapovalov is a great favourite here. It’s the combination of his all-action style, affinity for digging himself out of holes and a frisson of unruliness. Wimbledon crowds like a firestarter.

Shapovalov could use some of that home-cooking. Like most of them recently, it’s been an up-and-down season for the 24-year-old.

He was injured early, and says he’s feeling better now (though tennis players always say that). He managed a nice run of form at the French Open until he ran into world No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz like a wall. Still, making the third round in Paris was his best result there.

He was bounced early in his German warm-up. Now he’s returning to his favourite major, one in which he made the semis in 2019.

We’ve become used to Canadians doing well on the men’s and women’s tours, but we’re still waiting on someone to create a greater expectation than Shapovalov.

His 2017 defeat of Rafael Nadal at the Rogers Cup remains Canadian tennis’s ultimate surprise package – a 17-year-old no one had ever heard of taking out the best in the world. Lots of people – John McEnroe was one of them – tapped Shapovalov as one of a handful of heirs to the Big Three.

It hasn’t worked out that way. Not yet, at least. Shapovalov’s become more famous for his temper – shrieking at umpires, whipping balls around the court – than his results.

Shapovalov social-media feeds are filled with the usual self-promotional bumpf. One recent post is not like the others – a TikTok of the now-famous Giannis Antetokounmpo outburst on the topic of failure.

“Michael Jordan played 15 years, won six championships. The other nine years was a failure?” Antetokounmpo says at one point.

What about that post struck you?

“I think every athlete can relate to that,” Shapovalov said. “There’s a lot of noise and a lot of people talking about every loss and if you’re not playing well it doesn’t stop.”

How do you avoid letting that get to you?

“You realize that you need to lose some matches in order to win. If Novak [Djokovic] doesn’t lose [French Open warm-up tournaments] in Monte Carlo and Rome, maybe he doesn’t win the French.”

Now warming to this theme, you can hear Shapovalov taking a better grip on the phone.

“Stan [Wawrinka] once said it – it’s a sport where you lose constantly. Most of the weeks, you’re losing. … In order to succeed you’ll have to go through failure. It’s part of the path.”

Wawrinka didn’t say it exactly like that (the important part was “unless you win the tournament, you always go home as a loser”).

Wawrinka said it right before he won his first Grand Slam. Maybe that’s why it’s become such a touchstone quote.

Shapovalov is nowhere close to old, but he sounds like a guy who’s reached that point of adulthood where you read Atomic Habits instead of getting stuck into Call of Duty. His patter is somewhere between Brene Brown and Yoda.

If there is a moment to demonstrate that all this perspective is working out, this would be a good time for it.

He’s getting onto his preferred surface (“It’s very exciting to be back on grass”) at a time when things feel up for grabs. The Big Three has been reduced to the Big One, with the rules of succession still muddy.

“There are more opportunities now to make deep runs. Everybody is at a superclose level, except for a couple of guys, especially Alcaraz,” Shapovalov says. He seems to realize in the midst of this that he is psyching himself out, and changes tack: “Even with Novak, I think there are going to be lots of new Grand Slam champions.”

What you’ll notice here is that Shapovalov is not talking about winning anything, and does not put himself in the “couple of guys” at the top of the men’s game. He talks like someone who believes they have, at best, a puncher’s chance. A Rocky amidst Apollo Creeds.

Mostly, he sounds like a guy taking enormous effort to concentrate on being grateful. He’s healthy. He’s in a highly Instagrammable relationship with Swedish fellow pro Mirjam Bjorklund. Like Beyonce says, tomorrow is not promised.

“There is no tournament like Wimbledon …” – you can hear him searching around for a greater superlative – “… It’s THE tennis tournament. I can’t say it better than that. Every player feels when they’re on the site that it’s a blessing to be there. They feel how lucky they are.”

Some maybe more than others.