Jannik Sinner avenged his loss to Ben Shelton in the fourth round of last year’s Shanghai Tennis Masters by beating 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 many exceptional shots and impeccable serves. However, the Italian came out on top in this duel, and he improved his record to 4-1 in his career against Shelton.

Sinner’s break in the ninth game proved decisive in the first set. Both players then served flawlessly in the second set, but the world No. 1 came out on top in the tiebreaker and won the last seven points of the match. Sinner thus reached the quarter-finals of a Masters 1000 tournament for the seventh time this campaign.
He will face world number five Daniil Medvedev, who defeated arch-rival Stefanos Tsitsipas 7-6 (3), 6-3, in a match in which the Greek verbally attacked head umpire Fergus Murphy. Tsitsipas was reprimanded for taking too long to put the ball back in play, and he initially refused to resume play.

“You’ve never played tennis in your life. You don’t seem to know anything about tennis,” the Greek told Murphy. “You never had a career. You’ve probably been serving and volleying your whole life. Anyway, tennis is a physical game and we need time. You have to be compassionate, which you don’t,” he continued. “It’s a physical game. We don’t play darts here, understand?”
A similar incident had occurred the day before. This time, American Frances Tiafoe repeatedly cursed the referee overseeing his 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 12th straight victory after narrowly defeating Frenchman Gael Monfils 6-4, 7-5.

Alcaraz hit 22 winners and broke each set to clinch the match after 87 minutes of play. The Spaniard, champion of the French Open and Wimbledon, will face Tomas Machac in the quarter-finals.

Then, at the end of the day, Serbian Novak Djokovic continued his quest for a 100th career title on the ATP circuit by eliminating Russian Roman Safiullin 6-3, 6-2.

Elsewhere, world No. 3 Alexander Zverev was defeated 6-4, 7-5 by David Goffin. The 33-year-old Belgian will now face Taylor Fritz in the quarter-finals after the American comfortably defeated Denmark’s Holger Rune 6-1, 6-2.