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Tommy Paul boosted his slim Nitto ATP Finals qualification hopes on Monday at the Rolex Shanghai Masters, where he defeated #NextGenATP Frenchman Arthur Fils 6-4, 6-7(7), 6-4 to reach the fourth round.

In a hard-fought clash, the American recovered from squandering two match points in the second-set tie-break, responding with consistent baseline play in the deciding set to advance after two hours and 40 minutes.

Paul is currently 11th in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Turin on 2,525 points, trailing eighth-placed Holger Rune by 585 points. The 26-year-old is aiming to make his debut at the prestigious year-end event.

Paul has advanced to at least the fourth round at all hard-court ATP Masters 1000 events this season (Indian Wells, Miami, Toronto SFs, Cincinnati, Shanghai). He will aim to reach his second Masters 1000 quarter-final of the year when he takes on Andrey Rublev or Adrian Mannarino.

[ATP APP]

Zhang Zhizhen made more history on Sunday when he became the first Chinese player to reach the fourth round at the Rolex Shanghai Masters in the history of the ATP Masters 1000 event. The World No. 60 overcame 2022 Next Gen ATP Finals champion Brandon Nakashima 7-6(2), 6-2.

Competing on home soil, Zhang struck 18 winners and saved the one break point he faced to advance after one hour and 25 minutes. He also clinched seven consecutive points in the first-set tie-break to lead.

“I didn’t even know I won seven points in a row," Zhang said. "I just tried to go point by point. It was a very tough match because I couldn’t find any chance on his serve until the second set. I had to be patient and I’m glad I broke him in the end. I’m pretty happy.”

[ATP APP]

Zhang became the first ATP Masters 1000 quarter-finalist from China in May in Madrid and in July rose to No. 52 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, the highest position ever held by anyone from the East Asian country. He beat Casper Ruud at the US Open to become the first Chinese man to beat a Top 5 opponent.

Second seeds Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski made a winning start to their Rolex Shanghai Masters campaign on Sunday when they defeated Americans Mackenzie McDonald and Frances Tiafoe 6-7(3), 6-1, 10-3.

The Dutch-British team reached the title match in Beijing last week and quickly adjusted to the hard courts in Shanghai, winning 85 per cent (29/35) of their first-serve points. Chasing their fourth ATP Masters 1000 title as a team, they will next play Gonzalo Escobar and Aleksandr Nedovyesov.

Australians Alex de Minaur and Max Purcell upset top seeds Ivan Dodig and Austin Krajicek, claiming a dramatic victory to reach the second round.

De Minaur and Purcell edged a tight Match Tie-break to triumph 6-7(3), 6-1, 11-9 after one hour and 32 minutes. De Minaur and Purcell are teaming for just the second time this week, having played once together at the Australian Open in 2017.

[ATP APP]

Jannik Sinner dug deep to maintain his unbeaten Asian swing on Sunday at the Rolex Shanghai Masters, where the sixth seed overcame Sebastian Baez 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 to book a fourth-round spot at the ATP Masters 1000 event.

Beijing champion Sinner ground down the typically resilient Baez for his seventh consecutive win. He powered 29 winners and made just 11 unforced errors to wrap a two-hour triumph inside the Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena.

“I was expecting a very tough match,” said Sinner, who became the third player to reach 20 Masters 1000 wins this year after Alcaraz and Medvedev. “He was playing really well in the first set.

“In the second set I tried to play a bit more aggressive, which worked better. When you start by going a break up immediately in the second it is a little bit easier to get into the rhythm. I’m very proud of how I handled the situation.”

It was a continuation of his recent fine form for Sinner, who lifted his maiden Masters 1000 trophy in August in Toronto and defeated Carlos Alcaraz and Daniil Medvedev back-to-back to claim the title in Beijing. His opening-round victory in Shanghai against Marcos Giron had clinched his spot at the season-ending Nitto ATP Finals, and he cut a relaxed figure against Baez despite the Argentine making a fast start in the pair’s maiden Lexus ATP Head2Head meeting.

Arthur Fils accelerated to a third-round spot Sunday at the Rolex Shanghai Masters, where the #NextGenATP Frenchman downed 24th seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 6-2, 7-5 to underline his credentials as one of the biggest emerging talents on Tour.

The World No. 44 Fils hit 22 winners en route to an 83-minute win at the Qizhong Tennis Center. He broke Davidovich Fokina’s serve twice in each set to avenge his defeats to the Spaniard earlier this year at Roland Garros and Wimbledon.

Locked in ?@ArthurFils1 overcomes Davidovich Fokina 6-2, 7-5 to reach the third round in Shanghai.#RolexShanghaiMasters | @SH_RolexMasters pic.twitter.com/PS2FHu1pTN

With his win, Fils secured back-to-back main-draw victories at an ATP Masters 1000 event for the first time. He arrived in Shanghai with a 1-3 record at that level, but will now take on 12th seed Tommy Paul in the third round after confidently moving past Pavel Kotov and Davidovich Fokina in China.

Fils is now 16-13 for the season, a tally which includes lifting his maiden ATP Tour crown in May in Lyon. Sunday’s victory is also a boost for the 19-year-old as he looks to secure a debut appearance at the season-ending Next Gen ATP Finals. He is currently fifth in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Jeddah.

Casper Ruud earned consecutive ATP Masters 1000 hard-court wins for the first time this year on Sunday when he defeated American Christopher Eubanks 6-4, 6-2 to reach the fourth round at the Rolex Shanghai Masters.

The eighth seed, who defeated Yoshihito Nishioka in his opening match, was too consistent for Eubanks. He committed just six unforced errors and saved all three break points he faced to advance after 72 minutes.

Ruud last won back-to-back matches at a hard-court Masters in Montreal in 2022, when he reached the semi-finals. The Norwegian will aim to continue his run in Shanghai when he next plays Dusan Lajovic or Fabian Marozsan.

With his 35th win of the season, Ruud has also boosted his Nitto ATP Finals qualification chances. The 24-year-old is 10th in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Turin, 315 points behind eighth-placed Holger Rune, who lost in his opening match in Shanghai.

[ATP APP]

After a topsy-turvy 2023 season so far, is Sebastian Korda getting back to his free-flowing best?

The American delivered a high-class display to claim the biggest win of his career Sunday at the Rolex Shanghai Masters, where he downed second seed Daniil Medvedev 7-6(8), 6-2 at the ATP Masters 1000 event.

Korda saved three set points to prevail in a compelling first-set tie-break featuring a series of all-court exchanges, although he was also grateful to three double-faults from Medvedev. The World No. 3 cut a frustrated figure in the second set and a Korda break in the second game proved enough for the 26th seed to secure an impressive one-hour, 28-minute win.

“We played really good tennis from the beginning,” said Korda. “We had some long rallies. I’m just really happy to get that first set under my belt and then it was just a matter of getting into one of his service games and hopefully taking it home after.”

Giant slayer ⚔️

Sebastian Korda records his first Top 5 win of his career, knocking out defending champion Daniil Medvedev.#RolexShanghaiMasters | @SH_RolexMasters pic.twitter.com/V26exExz2O

Taylor Fritz fought off a brilliant attacking performance from Japan's Yosuke Watanuki to win his Saturday opener at the Rolex Shanghai Masters. The American earned a 7-6(2), 6-7(6), 6-4 victory, breaking in the match's final game after he stopped his opponent from serving out each of the first two sets prior to the tie-breaks.

The 25-year-old Watanuki played one of the best matches of his career against his first Top 10 opponent but was thwarted by Fritz's steadier play, particularly in the closing stages of each set. The World No. 79 did not face a break point until he lost serve at 5-4 in the opener, and he failed to serve out the second set at 5-3.

"It came down to the smallest margins," said Fritz, who capitalised on the lone break point of the final set, which doubled as match point. "To be honest, it just came down to me upping it just a bit in the end and then him making mistakes when prior he wasn't really doing much wrong.

"It was tough for me to play my game because no matter what shot I hit, he just blasted a winner or missed off of it. So I was just fighting to stay in it."

[ATP APP]

Watanuki hit 53 winners and 44 unforced errors, filling up the stat sheet compared to Fritz's tidier 26-to-17 ratio. The Japanese player — who reached the final at a Shanghai ATP Challenger Tour event last month in his most recent previous tournament — hit 25 forehand winners, but also made 28 unforced errors off that wing.

Carlos Alcaraz settled in quickly to his maiden Rolex Shanghai Masters campaign on Saturday, when the top seed overcame a spirited Gregoire Barrere 6-2, 7-5 at the ATP Masters 1000 event.

Alcaraz stayed the more consistent at key moments to claim a one-hour, 42-minute triumph against the World No. 73. He made a lightning-fast start inside Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena, where he raced to a 4-0 lead early and ultimately saved six of seven break points he faced to improve to 15-0 in opening matches this season.

Barrere competed well in his maiden Lexus ATP Head2Head meeting with Alcaraz, particularly from the baseline where he regularly matched Alcaraz’s power and precision with his groundstrokes. He struggled with his serve throughout the match, however, making just 53 per cent (42/79) of first deliveries. That tally undermined his bid for a first Top 10 win as Alcaraz maintained constant pressure in return games.

Now 62-8 for the season, Alcaraz will take on 30th seed Daniel Evans or qualifier Mikhail Kukushkin in the third round as he chases his third Masters 1000 crown of the year. The Spaniard is also attempting to leapfrog Novak Djokovic into first place in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Turin by reaching the final in Shanghai.

More to follow…

Jannik Sinner is the fourth player to qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals, joining Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev at the season finale, which will be played in Turin from 12-19 November.

The Italian earned his place after defeating Marcos Giron in the second round of the Rolex Shanghai Masters. He has qualified for the year-end championships for the first time after competing at the Pala Alpitour as an alternate in 2021 when countryman Matteo Berrettini withdrew due to injury.

Sinner has enjoyed a season of breakthroughs in 2023. The Italian advanced to his first major semi-final at Wimbledon and lifted his maiden ATP Masters 1000 trophy in Toronto.

Also a champion this year in Beijing and Montpellier, Sinner made several deep runs throughout the season. He reached the final at the Masters 1000 event in Miami, where he upset Carlos Alcaraz in a semi-final widely viewed as one of the best matches of the year. Sinner also made the final in Rotterdam and reached the semi-finals at Indian Wells and Monte-Carlo.

The 22-year-old is in top form as evidenced by his performance in Beijing, where he defeated Alcaraz and Daniil Medvedev in back-to-back straight-sets matches to claim the trophy. 

Saturday’s play at the Rolex Shanghai Masters has been disrupted after persistent rain forced matches on outside courts to be suspended at the ATP Masters 1000 event.

After a couple of short stoppages earlier in the day, play was halted just after 4 p.m. local time in China, with no restart currently scheduled before 6 p.m. The action continues under the retractable roof of the Qizhong Tennis Center’s Stadium Court, where Daniil Medvedev and Stefanos Tsitsipas have already claimed second-round victories. Jannik Sinner, champion in Beijing earlier this week, is currently in action against Marcos Giron.

Matches involving seeded players Frances Tiafoe, Cameron Norrie and Ugo Humbert are all currently suspended. Norrie leads J.J. Wolf 3-6, 7-5, 3-2 with a break in the third set, while Tiafoe trails Lorenzo Sonego 6-2, 2-6, 1-2 with the pair on serve in the decider. Humbert and Botic van de Zandschulp are level at 2-2 in the opening set of their second-round clash.

[NEWSLETTER FORM]

Daniil Medvedev picked up where he left off Saturday at the Rolex Shanghai Masters.

Stepping onto the Qizhong Tennis Center’s Stadium Court for the first time since his 2019 title run, Medvedev ground down Cristian Garin for a 6-3, 6-3 win to kick-start his campaign at the ATP Masters 1000 event. A display packed with trademark defensive nous and a refusal to miss proved too much for Garin as the second seed comfortably advanced having converted five of nine break points he earned.

.@DaniilMedwed will not be denied ?‍♂️#RolexShanghaiMasters | @SH_RolexMasters pic.twitter.com/vvkSBEL07b

With his 92-minute victory, Medvedev became the second player to notch 60 tour-level wins this season after Carlos Alcaraz. It is the second time he has achieved the feat in his career, after he finished the 2021 season with 63 wins. The 27-year-old Medvedev also owns a Tour-leading 43 victories on hard courts this season.

“I hope so, you never know,” said Medvedev, when asked if he was confident of passing his record of 63 wins. “At this moment and with the form I’m in, I would confidently say I will do it, but never say things too early in tennis.

One of the newest INSIGHTS metrics, Shot Variety, provides an objective measure for how much a player mixes up their tactics and shot selection during match play.

Expressed as a percentage of all shots hit, Shot Variety is calculated by comparing the use of "core" shots — topspin groundstrokes hit through the opponent's baseline — with the use of variation. This variation can include deep or short slices, drop shots, topspin angles and shots at net.

The metric provides a useful tool to help demonstrate how a player's tactics compare to the rest of the ATP Tour. When viewed for a particular match, Shot Variety can also show how a player's shot selection compares to his own benchmarks from previous matches.

[ATP APP]

Out of players inside the Top 100 of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, Daniel Evans and Alexander Bublik are the co-leaders in Shot Variety over the past 52 weeks, with both players hitting roughly 47 per cent of their shots with variation. For Evans, his 46.8 per cent score breaks down as follows: slices (25.1%), short slices (7.1%), drop shots (1.2%), angles (2.1%), net shots (11.3%).

Former World No. 99 Pedro Sousa put a bow on his professional career Thursday at the Del Monte Lisboa Belém Open in Portugal.

The host site of the ATP Challenger Tour 75 event, the Club Internacional de Foot-Ball is Sousa’s home club, making the 35-year-old’s final tournament a memorable goodbye.

“The hardest part is long gone, it was when I had to make the decision. It seemed like this day would never come, but suddenly it was here,” Sousa said in Portuguese at a press conference in Lisbon. “Before the match I was okay, but then that pressure came. Playing here is always special. I had friends, family and club members that I see daily, which gave me extra strength to perform well.”

[ATP APP]

Sousa, who turned pro in 2007, collected eight ATP Challenger Tour titles and is one of four Portuguese men to crack the Top 100 of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings in the past decade.

One of the latest INSIGHTS metrics, Serve Effectiveness takes a holistic look at player serves by simply measuring how often the shot earns a player an advantage in points.

Expressed as a percentage, the metric includes aces, service winners, unreturned serves and points in which a player is In Attack on the first ball after the serve.

By combining all of these statistics into one measure, we can achieve a fuller understanding of a player's serving prowess — stripping away unrelated factors like performance in ensuing rallies, which is implicitly factored into basic statistics like service points won.

Like all INSIGHTS, a player's Serve Effectiveness data can be compared to his season average and the ATP Tour average to better understand how much of a relative strength (or weakness) his serve is.

Out of the initial 32 seeds for this year's Wimbledon (prior to withdrawals), three players broke the 70 per cent mark by this metric on first serve over the previous 52 weeks: Nick Kyrgios, Hubert Hurkacz and Felix Auger-Aliassime.

Unseeded Austrians Alexander Erler and Lucas Miedler defeated French singles stars Ugo Humbert and Adrian Mannarino 6-2, 6-2 to make a winning start to their Rolex Shanghai Masters campaign on Friday.

Erler/Miedler were a perfect six-for-six on break chances in the 57-minute match, while saving two of the four break points against them. The Austrians won more than 50 per cent of their return points against both first and second serve.

Erler/Miedler are in 15th place in the Pepperstone ATP Live Doubles Teams Rankings but could make up significant ground on the top eight with a deep run in Shanghai.

[ATP APP]

Fifth-seeded Argentines Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni — comfortably inside the top eight at fourth place in their quest to qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin — also notched an opening win on Friday with a 6-4,  6-4 result against Hugo Nys and Jan Zielinski.

The Rolex Shanghai Masters celebrated 25 years of professional tennis in the Chinese city on Friday.

The Shanghai event has operated as an ATP Masters 1000 since 2009, and was awarded ATP Masters 1000 Tournament of the Year, as voted by players, in each of its first five years with that status. The Nitto ATP Finals, then known as the Tennis Masters Cup, was also held in Shanghai in 2002 and from 2005-08.

The lone Masters 1000 in Asia, Shanghai regularly attracts the biggest names on the ATP Tour, with stars like Roger Federer, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic all former champions at the state-of-the-art Qi Zhong Tennis Center.

[ATP APP]

Special guests at Friday's ceremony included ATP Chairman Andrea Gaudenzi; Charles Humphrey Smith, an ATP Tournament Advisory Council member and the Rolex Shanghai Masters managing director; and Rolex Shanghai Masters tournament director Michael Luevano.

Zhang Zhizhen added another historic achievement to his groundbreaking year on the ATP Tour on Friday at the Rolex Shanghai Masters.

The World No. 60 defeated Tomas Martin Etcheverry 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 to become the first home favourite to reach the third round at the ATP Masters 1000 event. Zhang edged the 28th-seeded Argentine in a gripping two-hour, 28-minute encounter played out amid a raucous atmosphere inside the Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena.

“First set I was down, and he had a break,” said Zhang after the match. “I told myself, second set I still have a chance. I just tried to hold my service games and see if I could break him. First set my return was not working well, so I changed my position a bit and I’m happy to win the match of course.”

History made ? ?

From a set down Zhang defeats Etcheverry to become the first Chinese man to reach the third round at the Shanghai Masters!@SH_RolexMasters | #RolexShanghaiMasters pic.twitter.com/hPQ4jP624W

Zhang clinched a crucial break in the ninth game of the deciding set and then held his nerve to convert his third match point in a final game featuring a series of bruising baseline exchanges. He outhit Etcheverry by 32 winners to 30 to seal his eighth Top 50 win of the season.

Is anyone arriving at the Rolex Shanghai Masters in better form than Jannik Sinner?

The Italian arrives at the ATP Masters 1000 fresh from notching back-to-back victories against Carlos Alcaraz and Daniil Medvedev to claim his third title of the season in Beijing. Beating the top two seeds in the Shanghai draw so recently has left the Italian’s confidence sky-high, particularly his maiden Lexus ATP Head2Head triumph, at the seventh attempt, against Medvedev.

“I’m always looking for the very tough challenges and I’m very happy that I had the chance to play against him again,” said Sinner on Friday of his Medvedev win. “Obviously finals are a little bit different, but for me it is always a huge pleasure when I get the chance to play against the best players in the world.

“I lost many times against him. I changed a couple of things, tactical things, which were working very well at some points, but this is all part of the process and the practice sessions we have done. We try to analyse a couple of things after the match and make the same things happen in practice. This is part of the work we are putting in and you have to show this in a match.”

In contrast to his rivalry with Medvedev, Sinner now leads Alcaraz 4-3 in the pair’s Lexus ATP Head2Head series. He is one of the few players on Tour who has regularly caused problems to the Spaniard during his meteoric rise.

It may have been a long four years since the previous edition of the Rolex Shanghai Masters, but Daniil Medvedev retains strong memories of his successful 2019 campaign in China.

Medvedev overcame Alexander Zverev in the championship match that year to cap a stellar run on hard courts during which he lifted his first two ATP Masters 1000 crowns (Cincinnati, Shanghai) and reached his maiden Grand Slam final at the US Open. The 27-year-old believes his Shanghai triumph was crucial in proving his spurt of success was no flash in the pan.

“This title is really strong in my memory,” said Medvedev on Friday as he prepares to defend his 2019 crown in Shanghai. “I managed to go on a run of reaching six finals in a row. Three of them were Masters 1000s and one was a Grand Slam. At the time it was huge for me. I probably didn’t expect and didn’t think I would be able to do something like this.

“[Shanghai] was the tournament, after this great US summer, where everyone was asking, and I was asking myself: ‘Am I really capable of going again and playing good and winning the title maybe?’ I managed to do it. I loved the tournament and loved the city, so it really gave me a lot of confidence for the future also.”

Medvedev has notched a Tour-leading 42 wins on hard courts in 2023 and has lifted four of his five ATP Tour crowns this season on the surface. Despite defeat to Jannik Sinner in Wednesday’s final at the China Open in Beijing, he is delighted with the consistency of his displays on his favoured surface.