Felix Auger-Aliassime’s Shanghai Masters ended 35 minutes into his fourth-round match on Wednesday, when the fourth seed stopped with a knee injury trailing Casper Ruud 5-2 in the first set.
Ruud, who was on the other side of the net when it happened, put the moment early. “I think he was ready at the start and it seemed to me that he kind of twisted something over at the net in the third or fourth game,” the Norwegian said, according to the ATP Tour. The Canadian Press reported that Auger-Aliassime received treatment before deciding he could not continue. The official result, 5-2 retired, came after 35 minutes and 15 seconds on Stadium Court, according to the ATP’s match record.
Ruud’s set of nine. The retirement carries a record with it. Ruud had never reached the quarter-finals in Shanghai, and doing so completes a quarter-final at all nine Masters 1000 events. The ATP says he is the seventh active player to manage it, after Novak Djokovic, Marin Cilic, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Alexander Zverev, Grigor Dimitrov and Daniil Medvedev.
He plays Rafael Jodar next. The 20-year-old Spaniard came from a set down for the third match running, beating Botic van de Zandschulp 6-7(4), 6-4, 6-2 in two hours and 30 minutes. Van de Zandschulp saved two break points in the opening set and played the tie-break cleaner, before Jodar broke early in the second. “I think I was doing the right things, but he played important points in the tie-break better than me,” Jodar said. “In the second set, I started up a break that helped me get [further] into the set in a better shape.”
The quarter-finals. The last eight in Shanghai, in draw order:
- [1] Alexander Zverev vs [9] Alex de Minaur
- Arthur Gea vs [25] Alejandro Davidovich Fokina
- [12] Rafael Jodar vs [20] Casper Ruud
- [5] Daniil Medvedev vs [15] Tommy Paul or Zizou Bergs
Medvedev beat Tsitsipas 6-4, 7-5 in the evening session. The Associated Press reported that the result makes him only the fourth player, after Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, to reach the Shanghai quarter-finals in three straight years. Gea, in his first Masters 1000 main draw, beat Jakub Mensik 7-6(4), 6-4 on Tuesday.
What it means for Turin. Auger-Aliassime arrived at Wednesday’s match 15th in the PIF ATP Live Race To Turin with 2,465 points, according to the ATP. A fourth-round exit at a 96-draw Masters 1000 is worth 100 points, which he had already banked by reaching that round, so his total stays where it was. Medvedev sat eighth in the Live Race with 3,120 points before beating Tsitsipas, and the ATP’s table showed a win would take him to 3,220.
The ATP’s qualification rule is that the top seven in the Race after the Paris Masters go to the Nitto ATP Finals. The eighth place goes to a current-year Grand Slam champion ranked between eighth and 20th in the Race, if there is one; if not, it goes to the man in eighth. Jodar, by contrast, is moving the right way: the ATP had him 11th in the Live Race after Wednesday’s win, 131 points behind 10th-placed Djokovic. How a withdrawal from Turin passes a place down the list is set out in our ATP Finals alternates explainer, and the current table is on our Race to Turin page.
The rankings consequence is smaller but immediate. The Canadian Press described Auger-Aliassime as fifth-ranked; the ATP’s live rankings had him sixth before the match, 350 points below his official total because of points dropping from last year’s Shanghai.
What is not known. Neither the ATP nor Tennis Canada had published a diagnosis or a timeline for the knee at the time of writing. The Paris Masters, after which the top seven in the Race are set, is covered in our Paris Masters guide, and the rules on treatment during a match are in our medical timeouts explainer.
