Carlos Alcaraz, the top seed in the Shanghai Masters, persevered through "one of the toughest matches this year" to advance to the round of 16.
Top seed Carlos Alcaraz of the Shanghai Masters battled through what he called "one of the toughest matches this year" to defeat Britain's Daniel Evans 7-6 (7/1), 6-4 and advance to the tournament's round of 16. After Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece lost to France's Ugo Humbert in a late-night encounter by scores of 6-4, 3-6, and 7-5, the Spaniard is the only one of the tournament's top four seeds still standing. Evans, who is rated 33rd, gave everything he had during Alcaraz's nearly two-and-a-half-hour match, led by three games at one point in the first set. However, throughout the course of protracted and occasionally tense rallies that left audience members panting and groaning, the world number two eventually took the lead and easily won the first-set tiebreaker.
The 20-year-old Alcaraz described the contest as one of the hardest he had played so far this year.
"I made an effort to remain there constantly, watching for my openings. I had to maintain my physical and mental toughness. The level I played made me very happy.
Alcaraz will next face Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, who earlier triumphed 7-6 (8/6), 6-4 over Russian Karen Khachanov despite a torrential downpour and an evenly matched opponent.
The two-time Grand Slam champion Alcaraz is the favourite to win the match without Novak Djokovic, and he intends to use his trip to China to catch up to the Serbian at the top of the ATP rankings.
And as the battle has developed, his list of primary competitors has gotten less.
On Sunday, 26th-ranked Sebastian Korda beat second seed and defending champion Daniil Medvedev, and third seed Holger Rune was eliminated a round earlier.
In the early hours of Tuesday, Tsitsipas of Greece joined them following a game in which the 25-year-old never really seemed to find consistent form.
After dropping the first set, the world number six appeared shaken but quickly collected himself to win the second.
Tsitsipas appeared to lose his cool, yelling angrily to himself and slamming a ball high into the air out of frustration as the 34th-ranked Humbert pulled ahead once more in the third.
Despite a late Greek comeback in the third set, Humbert managed to hold on until Tsitsipas put the ball in the net at the conclusion of the matchpoint rally.
"At the end it was a little bit tight, I tried to move a bit in the last two games, and I'm very proud I did it," the player from France stated.
After that, he will contend with American JJ Wolf, a task he described as "not easy".
Andrey Rublev, the fifth seed and world number seven, advanced to the round of 16 as well after defeating Humbert's countryman Adrian Mannarino 6-3, 6-0 in just one hour.
For 19-year-old Arthur Fils, who overcame a set deficit against world No. 12 Tommy Paul to win a tiebreaker in the second set, there was more French heartache.
At the eighth game of the third set, the competitors were even, but the American stole the final two games to win 6-4, 6-7 (7/9), 6-4.
Later this week, Paul and Rublev will get together.
Tuesday's evening session will feature a match between Jannik Sinner, who last week eliminated Alcaraz from the China Open semifinals in Beijing, and Ben Shelton of the United States.
Wildcard In a thrilling third-set tiebreaker on Monday, Diego Schwartzman defeated world No. 8 Taylor Fritz to go to the fourth round as well.
Despite falling from ninth to 130th in the world, the small Argentinean played his best tennis to defeat American Fritz 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7/5).
Over a three-hour skirmish, where the 31-year-old Schwartzman played up to the crowd and urged them to yell and cheer for him, the rankings and age discrepancies were hardly noticeable.
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The Argentinean added, "I think it was a great match," and he sincerely thanked the tournament's organisers for granting him the wildcard, claiming it had made his "not his best year" better.
