Popyrin has played successfully on the ITF Junior Tour since 2013. Here he also played in a number of Grand Slam tournaments in 2016 and 2017 . In 2017, he reached the semi-finals in doubles at the Australian Open . At the French Open he won the individual competition in the final against Nicola Kuhn , which shortly afterwards achieved his best place in the world rankings of juniors with second place . He was the first Australian in his 49 years to win this title. From then on he decided to play on the professional tour, although he was eligible to play as a junior until the end of the year.
The Australian played on the professional tour for the first time in 2016 and mainly on the third-class ITF Future Tour , but also received wildcards for the higher endowed Challengers in Canberra and Launceston . His first successes came in 2017 when he won a future tournament and was in another final. At the end of the year he was 719 in the world rankings. In January 2018, Popyrin surprised when he was able to prevail in qualifying for the ATP World Tour tournament in Sydney against Federico Delbonis (67th place) and Nicolas Mahut (127th place). In his first ATP main field, however, he was defeated by compatriot John Millman . The following week he was able to take part in his first Grand Slam tournament - the Australian Open - thanks to a wildcard . Tim Smyczek got the upper hand here in four sentences. Popyrin won his first title on the Challenger Tour in Jinan . As a qualifier, he prevailed in the final against the British James Ward in three sets. As a result of this success, he improved by 99 places and achieved his best position so far with 211th place.