Alex De Minaur cruised past Camilo Ugo Carabelli 6-4 6-2 in 88 minutes in his opening match at the Shanghai Rolex Masters. De Minaur has claimed his personal best 48th ATP Tour level win in a single season. De Minaur has become the first Australian man to reach this tally since former world number 1 Lleyton Hewitt in 2004.
De Minaur holds a Tour-leading 35 wins on hard court ahead of Carlos Alcaraz and Taylor Fritz. The Australian player is currently seventh in the ATP Race to Turin just 325 points behind Ben Shelton.
De Minaur earned a break in the third game of the first set to take a 2-1 lead. Carabelli saved two break points in the seventh game and a set point in the ninth game. De Minaur served out the opening set on his first set pioint.
De Minaur broke twice in the third and fifth games of the second set. The Australian player served out the second set 6-2 on his fourth match point.
“I’m happy with myself. It’s a great achievement to show the consistency, I feel like I probably could have broken that record last year if I hadn’t go injured. To come back this year and just show that consistency week-in and week-out, I’m very proud of my efforts. Saying that, there’s still a lot of tennis to be played, so hopefully I can keep adding wins to that tally. Keep doing what I’m doing, keep my head down, keep working hard, keep showing up, and just keep the confidence and momentum going”, said De Minaur
World number 3 Alexander Zverev survived a foot injury to beat Valentin Royer 6-4 6-4 in 1 hour and 38 minutes to win the 10th Masters 1000 match of his career.
Zverev earned an early break in the first game, as Royer missed a forehand. The German player held three service games to take a 4-2 lead before facing a break point in the eighth game. Royer was not able to convert it and Zverev held his serve to open up a 5-3.
Zverev served for the first set at 5-4 and hit an ace to close out the first set 6-4 in 40 minutes.
Royer hit a forehand down the winner to earn two break points in the fourth game of the second set. Zverev saved them to hold serve drawing level to 2-2. Royer saved a break point in the seventh game before earning two break points in the eighth game. Zverev saved them to hold serve with a forehand down the line to hold serve with a forehand down the line. Royer squandered three game points in the ninth game. Zverev converted his second break point with a lob winner to take a 5-4 earning a chance to serve for the match. The German player needed a medical time-out at 5-4 lead due to a foo issue and closed out the match with a hold at love.
“I’m very happy to get through. I don’t know, I landed funny on my toe and after that I could barely do a step, so we’ll see what it is. I am not happy to end the match like that, of course, but I think definitely happy with the level in the first round of a Masters. That was quite good. He is playing very well and moving forward, we will see if I will ever be healthy this year again, because it’s been a struggle. But I’m happy to be through”, said Zverev.
Felix Auger Aliassime beat this year’s Chengdu Open champion Alejandro Tabilo 6-3 6-3 in his first match since the US Open. He got married on 20th September. Auger Aliassime saved all seven break points he faced. Auger Aliassime is 10th in the ATP Race to Turin, just 630 points behind Lorenzo Musetti, who beat Francisco Comesana 6-4 6-0. Musetti is currently eighth in the ATP Race to Turin.
Auger Aliassime set up a match against Dutchman Jesper De Jong, who came back from one set down to upset Jakub Mensik 4-6 7-6 (7-2) 6-4.
