Jannik Sinner avenged his fourth-round loss to Ben Shelton at last year’s Shanghai Masters tennis tournament by dispatching the 22-year-old American 6-4, 7-6 (1) on Wednesday.
As was the case last year, this duel was once again punctuated by numerous exceptional shots and impeccable serves. The Italian, however, emerged victorious from this duel, and he improved his career record to 4-1 against Shelton.
The break made by Sinner in the ninth game proved decisive in the first set. Both players were then impeccable on serve in the second set, but the world No. 1 prevailed in the tiebreaker and won the last seven points of the match. Sinner thus reached the quarter-finals of a Masters 1000 series tournament for the seventh time this campaign.
He will face the fifth player in the world Daniil Medvedev, who defeated his eternal rival Stefanos Tsitsipas 7-6 (3), 6-3, in a match during which the Greek verbally attacked the referee Chief Fergus Murphy. Tsitsipas received a reprimand for taking too long to put the ball back in play, and he initially refused to resume the match.
“You’ve never played tennis in your entire life. It looks like you don’t know anything about tennis, the Greek said to Murphy. You never had a career. You’ve probably been doing serve-volleys your whole life. Regardless, tennis is a physical sport and we need time. You have to show compassion, which is not your case, he continued. It’s a physical sport. We don’t play darts here, understand? »
The day before, a similar incident had occurred. This time, American Frances Tiafoe repeatedly cursed at the referee who was supervising her third-round match, before apologizing later in the day.
On the other hand, world No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz, who won the China Open against Sinner last week, recorded a 12e victory in a row after having barely defeated the Frenchman Gaël Monfils 6-4, 7-5.
Alcaraz hit 22 winners and made a break in each set to clinch the match after 87 minutes of play. The Spaniard, champion of the French Open and Wimbledon, will meet Tomas Machac in the quarterfinals. final.
Then, at the end of the day, the Serbian Novak Djokovic continued his quest for a 100e career title on the ATP circuit by eliminating the Russian Roman Safiullin 6-3, 6-2.
Elsewhere, world No. 3 Alexander Zverev was toppled 6-4, 7-5 by David Goffin. The 33-year-old Belgian will now face Taylor Fritz in the quarter-finals, after the American easily defeated Dane Holger Rune 6-1, 6-2.