#oh toronto 2023 you will always be famous

[fritzes]

Toronto 2023 aka one of the most bizarre tournaments of the entire season

Even Daniil winning Rome has nothing on this chaos:

First, let us take a look at some of the seeds in this tournament. Casper Ruud is the third seed, having just flopped his way through the entirety of grass season and getting bageled in the final of a clay 250. Fourth and fifth seeds are Stefanos Tsitsipas and Holger Rune - we'll get to them later. The tenth seed is Félix Auger-Aliassime, who has only managed to hold onto his spot because most of his points are from the end of the season. For reasons inexplicable to me, Cameron Norrie is the eleventh seed. Borna Coric, holding on to his Cincinnati points, is the fourteenth seed.

In round one, lucky loser Vukic immediately upsets Coric 6-2 6-3. Qualifier Purcell takes out FAA 6-4 6-4. Milos Raonic, given a wildcard into his home tournament, beats tenth seed Frances Tiafoe in a tight match in which there was a ton of drama about what areas of the net it is acceptable to touch and win a point. Speaking of Canadian wildcards, Diallo beats Evans, who had just won Washington the week before. And finally, Alex de Minaur (we'll be seeing a lot of him) beats Norrie in a comfortable 7-5 6-4.

In round two, the top seeds come in and a lot of them immediately head out. Fifth seed Holger Rune, about to enter a massive flop era, loses to qualifier Giron in three sets. Tsitsipas gets crushed by Monfils 6-4 6-3. Vukic continues his run by beating Korda in an extremely close match. With the exact same scoreline as Tsitsipas, sixth seed Andrey Rublev loses to McDonald. Thirteenth seed Zverev is utterly destroyed by Davidovich Fokina 6-1 6-2.

Now into the third round, newly crowned Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz loses the first set to Hubi Hurkacz. And, in true Hurkacz fashion, the next two sets go to tiebreaks, both of which Carlos wins handily. Vukic's crazy run is finally ended by Monfils. And Davidovich Fokina continues to show no mercy to top seeds as he takes out Casper. Now, it seems like Alex de Minaur is down and out, seeing as he is down 1-5 against eighth seed Taylor Fritz. But then he wins a game. And then another. And then another. Yes, he somehow manages to win the set and ends up breadsticking Fritz to win the match.

So into the quarterfinals we go. Carlos Alcaraz's streak, starting all the way at Queen's Club, comes to an end as he loses to the inconsistent roller coaster of a player that is Tommy Paul. Davidovich Fokina just keeps winning and beats McDonald 6-4 6-2. And again, it seems like Alex is done for, down 2-5 against Daniil Medvedev. But what do you know: he wins a game. And another. And another. Alex de Minaur does it again and wins the match in straight sets.

In the semifinals, he keeps his momentum going and beats Davidovich Fokina 6-1 6-3. Amidst all this chaos, Alex de Minaur has pulled off numerous feats of excellence and is surely on his way to a title.

But there's one top seed left.

To say that Jannik Sinner cruised through this tournament is almost an understatement. He only lost one set, and he was gifted a walkover in the third round. Tommy Paul, who just beat Alcaraz? Jannik beats him handily, 6-4 6-4.

Alex's reward for his incredible run is a final against someone he is 0-4 against, an in the near future would be 0-7 against.

Before his miracle run ever sprang from that fateful bin, Jannik Sinner emerged from this insane tournament as the winner. And a few months later, it paled in comparison to everything he would do next.