ATP 1000 Shanghai Masters Tournament.

Seeding

17   Lorenzo Musetti

18    Grigor Dimitrov     

19    Ben Shelton

20   Francisco Cerundolo

21    Jan-Lennard Struff 

22   Nicolas Jarry  

23    Tallon Griekspoor 

24    Alejandro Davidovich Fokina

25   Sebasztian Baez

26   Sebastian Korda 

27    Jiri Lehecka  

28   Tomas Martin Etcheverry

29    Christopher Eubank 

30     Daniel Evans

31    Adrian Mannarino  

32    Ugo Humbert  

Round 2

Tomorrow (Friday) and Saturday all 32 seeded players will play unseeded players,  n  Wonder how many seeded players will survive  and go through to Round 3? 

So far today there would be 14 match es in the bottom half of the draw played today.   Sinner and Medvedev will only play tomorrow

I was right in mentioning the survival the seeds survviing to go through to Round 3.   After 14 of the 16 Bottom Half of the matches were played -

*    7 seeded players; and

*    7 unseeded players

won their matches.  

Amongst the 7 match complted were the two outstanding matches from the Bottom of the Draw,   Both were won by seeded players so the count for the that part of the draw were completed and won by seeded players so as to the Btttom Half the Draw was as follows:-

Won by seeded players       -   9  matches

Won by unseeded players   -   7 matches

A s to the top Half of the Draw only 6 matches has been completed and 5 of those were won by seeded players.   Rain played havoc with the rest of the matches and  only the covered roof courts could be played.

 With 1 seed still to play there are the following situation:-

 Won by seeded players -  19 

Won by unseeded players - 13

Round 3

 Big upset - Medevedev lost agaiinst Korda.- not suprised hough Medvedev was very iffy in his  Round 2 match.   Tsitsipas also a gon er in Round 3,   

On completion of Round 3 of the seeded layers the following  numbers are left:-

Seeded 1 to 10               4    Players

Seeded 11 to 20             5    Players

Seeded 21 to 32             3    Players

Not very good of the Top 10 seeded players      

Round 4 

The  4  Bottom  Half of the Draw Round 4 matches has been layed and both  Sinner and Ruud have both been eliminated.   

So going into the Quarterfinals:\the situation is as follows with 1 Borrom Half of the draw match and al anbd all :=

Seeded    1 to  10                1 Players

Seeded    11 to 20               1 Players

Not what one expect from an A PT 1000 Masters tournament.   Rublev is the last and only top ten player going  into the quarterfinals where he is meting Humbert - who beat him in the last match they met.      ,                       . 

ROUND 2

Top Half of the Draw

I      Carlos Alcaraz                            vs     Gregoire Barrere

30   Daniel  Evans                              vs     Mikhail Kukushkin 

18    Grigor Dimitrov                         vs      Aleksandar Vukic

13   Karen Khachanov                        vs     Beibit Zhukajev

10    Frances Tiafoe                            vs     Lorenzo Sonego

22   Nicolas Jarry                                vs     Terence Atmane

27    Jerry Lehecka                               vs     Diego Schwartzman

7     Taylor Fritz                                   vs     Yosuke Watanuki

4    Stefanios Tsitsipas                         vs      Riki Hijikata  

32    Ugo Humbert                              vs       Botic van de Zandschulp

21    Jan-Lennard Struff                       vs      Matteo Arnaldi

15   Cameron Norrie                             vs       Jeffrey Wolf

12   Tommy Paul                                  vs      Sebatian Ofner

24    Alejandro Davidovich Fokina     vs       Arthur Fils

31    Adrian Mannarino                        vs     Chun Hsin Tseng 

5     Andrey Rublev                             vs       Quentin Halys

Bottom Half of the Draw

9     Casper Ruud                                vs    Yoshihito Nishioka

29   Christopher Eubanks                   vs    Yannik Hanfmann

23    Tallon Griekspoor                       vs     Dusan Lajovic

11    Alex de Minaur                            vs    Fabian Marozsan

15   Hubert Hurkacz                            vs    Thanasi Kokkinakis

17   Lorenzo Musetti                             vs   Yu Hsiou  Hsu

28   Tomas Martin Etcheverry              vs   Zizou Zhang  

3     Holger Rune                                  vs     Brandon Nakashima

6   Jannik Sinner                                   vs    Marcos Giron

25   Sebasztian Baez                             vs     Dane Sweeny

19   Ben Shelton                                   vs     Jaume Munar

9     Alexander Zverev                          vs     Roman Safiullin

14   Felix Auger-Aliassime                  vs    Marton Fucsovics

20   Francisco Cerundolo                     vs   .Mackenzie Mc'Donald

26   Sebastian Korda                            vs     Yunchaokate Bu 

2    Danill Medvedev                            vs     Christian Garin

I am not surprised by the absence of Djokovic from this tournament.  In the period 2007 to 2019  he was the  gre4at winner of APT  1000 tournaments and he won 36 of those.  In 2020 to 2023 he won 3such tournaments - since he played a minimal number of matches.   In 2023 thee are still the Paris Masters to play - lat year he entered that one and lost in Round 1.   So I do not think he would play in that toru nament.

In the meantime it seems from newspape reports that Alcaraz is troubled by soe injury.   He suffered from some pains in the US Grand Slam tournament and in Beijing he performed way below par,  Wonder what is going on.

To my mind he plays in too many tournaments.    Beasriing in mind there are 8 weeks with no tournaments in  a year, so tournaments are played over a 45 week period.  ,  Bearig in mind Alcaraz should only play in the 4 Grand Slam Tournaments and the 12 Masters torunaments, plus a maxumum of  6 APT 500 tournaments.  that means he would play in tournaments in 26 weeks pedr year.    ,         .   

ROUND 3

Top Half of the Draw

I      Carlos  Alcaraz                         vs      30    Daniel  Evans 

13   Karen Khachanov                     vs      18    Grigor Dimitrov

22   Nicolas Jarry                             vs       Lorenzo Sonego

7     Taylor Fritz                                vs      Diego Schwartzman

4    Stefanos Tsitsipas                       vs      32    Ugo Humbert

Jeffrey Wolf                                     vs      Matteo Arnaldi

12   Tommy Paul                             vs       Arthur Fils

5     Andrey Rublev                         vs      31    Adrian Mannarino

Bottom Half of the Draw

9     Casper Ruud                            vs      29   Christopher Eubanks

Fabian Marozsan                            vs       Dusan Lajovic

15   Hubert Hurkacz                       vs       Yu Hsiou  Hsu

Zizou Zhang                                   vs       Brandon Nakashima

6     Jannik Sinner                           vs        25   Sebasztian Baez

19   Ben Shelton                              vs        Roman Safiullin  

20   Francisco Cerundolo                vs        Marton Fucsovics  

 2    Danill Medvedev                      vs        26   Sebastian Korda

 Due to rain there are 10 Round 2 matches to be completed tomorrow.  3  Matches started and must be completed tomorrow morning - the toss in one was taken - but the match never started.   The other 6 matches must also be played..   That means there may also be a delay in completion of the 8 round 3 Bottom of the Draw matches schedulted to be played tomorrow.

.     

ROUND 4

Top half of the Draw

I      Carlos  Alcaraz                  vs         18    Grigor Dimitrov

22   Nicolas Jarry                      vs         Diego Schwartzman  

32    Ugo Humbert                    vs          Jeffrey Wolf

5     Andrey Rublev                   vs        12   Tommy Paul

Bottom Half of the Draw

9     Casper Ruud                      vs        Fabian Marozsan

15   Hubert Hurkacz                  vs        Zizou Zhang

6     Jannik Sinner                     vs       19   Ben Shelton  

20   Francisco Cerundolo          vs       26   Sebastian Korda  

QUARTERFINALS

Top half of the Draw

18    Grigor Dimitrov          vs      22   Nicolas Jarry  

5     Andrey Rublev             vs      32    Ugo Humbert

Bottom Half of the Draw

15        Hubert Hurkacz         vs     Fabian Marozsan   

19        Ben Shelton               vs      26   Sebastian Korda  

SEMIFINALS

5     Andrey Rublev                                   vs      18         Grigor Dimitrov 

15        Hubert Hurkacz                            vs      26         Sebastian Korda  

What is going on?   I cannot amend or post anything on site - have I been banned?     

With the highest seed left being 5 and the second highest being 16 -   winning  of he Quarterfian;s is very difficult to predict the outcomes of the quarterfinals.

Hurkacz vs Marozsan     

Although one can never be certain as to whether Hurkacz turned up to play - if he does he should beat the unseeded Marozsan

Shelton vs  Korda  

This is a case where unpredictabily is king.  Shelton and Korda did well in this series - so lets call it a toss-up.

Dimitrov vs Jarry

Dimitrov did very well against the tired Alcaraz - but I cannot see Jarry beating  him in the quarters.

Rublev vs Humbert

Humbert struck form on hard courts and is doing very well - in his last match against Rublev he beat him in three sets.     Rublev is entirely unpredictable  - it depends on which Rublev turns up for the match,   Based on their performances in Round 4  Rublev is the bookmakers favorite to win the match.    For his  sake I hope he will.    If he wins this tournament he will be the number 4 ranked player in the world.

By the way the commentators said today before the Rub lev-Paul match that it never in the hsitory of tennis since 1998 that in a Masters Tournament there coul;d potentially be only one player from the 10 ten ranked players in a quarterfinal if Rublev manage to win.   He will have a hard match against Humbert on Friday though.

By the way I think the scheduling of matches were too many major otournamentsd to close  to each other -  the US Open, followed a 10 days alter by the Beijing Open tournament and immediately - a day after the latter tournament the Shangai Masters started.   

All the players who went to the final stages of the China Open tournament did badly in Shanghai and all looked dired anyway..   That account for the poor eprformances ofc players like Alcaraz, Medcvedev and Sinner in particular.

.   ,   .       

FINAL

5   Andrey Rublev                           vs               15   Hubert Hurkacz

Congrats to Hurkacz  - a c los win nin a final set e-break makes h is persstenbce admiraqble.