Denis Shapovalov arrived in Los Cabos as the defending champion, but very little about his recent form suggested he’d be able to defend it. Carrying rib and shoulder injuries from the grass season, and having won just one of his previous eight matches since retiring mid-match against Pablo Carreno Busta at Wimbledon, the Canadian needed a real fight just to survive his first-round opener against Rinky Hijikata on Tuesday. He got one, and once he found his rhythm, he came through it.

“Happy Birthday to my wife,” said Shapovalov during his on-court interview after the hard-fought win, a day ahead of Mirjam Bjorklund’s actual birthday on Wednesday.

Shapovalov and Bjorklund married in 2025 after a long relationship that began on the WTA Tour, where Bjorklund competed professionally before later joining her husband’s team.

The match itself didn’t go smoothly at the start. Shapovalov made six double faults in the first set and landed just 33 percent of his first serves, getting broken twice as Hijikata took it 6-2. For a defending champion already dealing with an injury-hit season, it looked like the kind of scoreline that ends a title defense before it really begins.

The Canadian cleaned up his errors in the second set, making over 60 percent of the first serves, while winning 73 percent of the first serve points. He still got broken once in the set, but was able to break his opponent’s serve twice to win the second set 6-3. Coming into the third set, the double faults were almost gone, and Shapovalov did not lose a single point behind his first serve, which helped him to win the decider 6-2.

He turned it around in the second set, lifting his first-serve percentage above 60 and winning 73 percent of points behind it. He was broken once more but broke Hijikata’s serve twice to level the match at 6-3. By the third set, the double faults had all but disappeared, and Shapovalov didn’t drop a single point on his first serve, closing out the decider 6-2 to improve to 2-0 in his head-to-head against Hijikata.

Shapovalov’s dedication to Bjorklund points to a coaching arrangement that remains uncommon on the men’s side of the sport. A handful of other ATP players, including Mikhail Youzhny and Denis Istomin, have worked with their wives as part of their coaching setups, but it’s a dynamic that shows up far more often in reverse. Madison Keys and Liudmila Samsonova are both married to their coaches, blending the personal and professional sides of their careers in a way that’s still relatively rare for male players.

With the celebration behind him, Shapovalov now has to turn his attention to a far less forgiving atmosphere.

Denis Shapovalov Is Set to Face a Home Favorite in the Next Round

Having survived round one, Shapovalov now walks into a partisan crowd for round two, facing Mexican wild card Rodrigo Pacheco Mendez, who opened his own campaign with a win over Sho Shimabukuro. Pacheco Mendez has played sparingly at Tour level this season, with a runner-up finish at an ITF event in Xalapa his best result, but he has a history of playing well on home soil, reaching the quarterfinals in Acapulco last year.

Shapovalov, by contrast, carries a rough 2026 into this match, sitting at 10-14 on the season. His lone bright spot was a run to the semifinals in Dallas, where he lost a tight three-setter to Ben Shelton. He’ll also be defending a title won in a considerably easier draw than the one he faces now, with hard-court threats like Jiri Lehecka and Karen Khachanov both in the field this year.

None of that changes what’s directly ahead of him. A hostile crowd and a red-hot wild card await, and if Shapovalov starts slowly again, this time there won’t be an easy escape.