Cousins look forward to improbable 'dream' of playing in Shanghai final

VIDEO SHOWS: SOUNDBITES FROM THE ON COURT INTERVIEWS WITH THE SHANGHAI OPEN FINALISTS VALENTIN VACHEROT AND HIS COUSIN ARTHUR RINDERKNECH RESENDING WITH SHOTLIST  AND SCRIPT  SHOWS: SHANGHAI, CHINA (OCTOBER 11) (ATP MEDIA/IMG – Editorial use only. No Monetisation. No resales) 1. (SOUNDBITE) (French) SHANGHAI MASTERS FINALIST VALETIN VACHEROT ON REACHING HIS FIRST MASTERS FINAL, SAYING: "Maybe it's just my moment, it's maybe everything I've done since the first day I picked up a tennis racket, and my career, in parentheses let’s say, well, it's the launch. I don't expect to hear the Monegasque anthem. It's magnificent. But like I said, I think everything has fallen into place. All the work I've done has fallen into place this week and what's great is that I'm going to be able to leave it in a corner of my head. Even if I've already done it in training. I'm going to be able to keep it in a corner of my head and try to continue to do that throughout my career." 2. (SOUNDBITE) (French) SHANGHAI MASTERS FINALIST ARTHUR RINDERKNECH ON PLAYING HIS COUSIN ON SUNDAY, SAYING: "I just want to enjoy tomorrow (October 12), we'll see, we'll see what he does tomorrow, we'll have fun like when we played when we were 12 years old and. And we'll see. I think there are two winners today, there will be two winners tomorrow night, and there will be no losers." 3. (SOUNDBITE) (English) SHANGHAI MASTERS FINALIST VALETIN VACHEROT ON THE PEOPLE WHO HELPED HIM BECOME A PROFESSIONAL, SAYING: "Thanks to my parents, thanks to my family already, you know, when I was growing up, my brother Benjamin, that's over there was playing on the tour and he was ranked most of his career around the 200 in the world. And for me that was already unreal to be 200 in the world. I mean, me looking and just now to be here and then just I gotta say, it's so much thank you to to Steve Denton, Kevin O'Shea and all the coaches in Texas A&M, because they taught me the same thing, just to work hard. This is  probably where I learned how to be a professional tennis player and to stop just playing for fun. You know, to really work as a professional and to be as high in the ranking and then say thank you to now that the Monaco Federation, we're such a small family and we're pushing each other." 4. (SOUNDBITE) (English) SHANGHAI MASTERS FINALIST ARTHUR RINDERKNECH ON PLAYING HIS COUSIN IN THE FINAL, SAYING: "I don't know. Even in the, in the best dreams, we couldn't we couldn't have dreamt about about this. So I can't even say it's a dream because I don't think even one person in our family dreamt about it. So it wasn't a dream. It's just a dream that came out of nowhere and you know, we started believing it. I'll say in the quarters maybe I was like, 'who knows?' You know, it's really hard. Maybe one guy or two can pull out or whatever can happen. And you know, now we are here and we fought through so many matches and somehow we are the both guys standing at the end, so just incredible." STORY: A storybook ending is coming to Shanghai on Sunday (October 12) as cousins Arthur Rinderknech and Valentin Vacherot meet in a highly improbable final at the Rolex Shanghai Masters. It is the first ATP Masters 1000 final for both men and Vacherot, at No. 204, is the lowest-ranked finalist in Masters 1000 history. It will also be the first head-to-head meeting between France's Rinderknech and Monaco's Vacherot. Vacherot, a qualifier, stunned four-time Shanghai champion and No. 4 seed Novak Djokovic of Serbia 6-3, 6-4 in one hour and 43 minutes in Saturday's (October 11) first semi-final. Rinderknech, also unseeded, rallied for a 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 victory against 2019 Shanghai winner and No. 16 seed Daniil Medvedev of Russia in two hours and 30 minutes. The cousins, who both played college tennis at Texas A&M, embraced courtside after Medvedev double-faulted to end the match. "In the best dreams, we couldn't have dreamt about this, so I can't even say it's a dream, because I don't think even one person in our family dreamt about it," Rinderknech said. (Production: Simon Ormiston)

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