Rafael Jodar dropped the opening set for a fourth straight match at the Rolex Shanghai Masters on Friday and won again, beating Casper Ruud 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 to become the youngest semifinalist in the tournament’s history.
For an hour Ruud had the match where he wanted it. He broke in the 10th game to take the first set, and when Jodar went up a break early in the second, the Norwegian took it straight back for 2-2. From there Jodar’s forehand began to decide the rallies. He broke for 5-4, served out the set to love and broke Ruud three more times in the decider, five breaks in all across the last two sets of a match that lasted two hours and 20 minutes.
The 20-year-old Spaniard is 42-16 in his first full season on the ATP Tour and has now reached five tour-level semifinals in 2026, two of them at Masters 1000 level after Montreal. Jodar plays Daniil Medvedev or Tommy Paul for a place in Sunday’s final; their quarterfinal had not finished when this report was filed. With Alejandro Davidovich Fokina also through, it is only the fifth time since 2014 that two Spaniards have reached the semifinals of the same Masters 1000 event.
The other half. Alexander Zverev beat Alex de Minaur 6-4, 6-4 in 78 minutes on Thursday to reach his third Shanghai semifinal and his first since 2019. He took the only break of the first set with a forehand winner at 2-2, 0-40, then saved three break points to hold for 4-2. In the second he saved two more to hold for 3-3 and broke de Minaur in the next game. Zverev won 35 of 44 points behind his first serve, hit 10 aces and leads their head-to-head 9-4.
“I was, a lot of the time, outhitting Alex, which is difficult to do from the baseline because he is so fast and he loves this kind of court speed here,” Zverev said. “I felt good and I’m happy with the step up from the past couple of matches.”
Gea’s quarterfinal. Zverev’s semifinal opponent on Saturday is Davidovich Fokina, the 25th seed, who was leading Arthur Gea 4-1 after 22 minutes when the Frenchman retired with a psoas injury. Gea, 21, was playing the first Masters 1000 event of his career and had won 13 of his previous 15 tour-level matches, including Shanghai wins over Ben Shelton and Jakub Mensik.
“I felt pain in the psoas this morning. It was quite painful,” Gea said. “I went to the physio and did treatment and before the match I wasn’t sure if I should go on court. I tried from the beginning but it was not enough to play full. It would have been too dangerous for the end of the season, so I couldn’t continue.” He said he would have tests in France.
Davidovich Fokina, who had come through deciding-set tie-breaks against Frances Tiafoe and Hubert Hurkacz, is into his fourth Masters 1000 semifinal after Monte-Carlo in 2022, Toronto in 2023 and Monte-Carlo in 2025. He has won eight straight matches in China since taking the Chengdu title, after a back injury kept him out of the North American hard-court swing. “I’ve been on court a lot of time, and my body has to recover,” he said. “I’m blessed that I have two days more to recover better my body.”
The Race to Turin. Jodar’s win lifted him above Novak Djokovic and de Minaur into ninth in the Live Race to Turin, with Medvedev directly above him. Because Jannik Sinner, second in the Race, has ended his season with a knee injury, ninth is effectively the last qualifying place. The top seven in the Race after the Paris Masters qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals; the eighth berth goes to a current-year Grand Slam champion ranked between eighth and 20th if there is one, and otherwise to the player in eighth. GTN’s Race to Turin tracker sets out the full standings, and the alternates rule explains what happens if a qualifier withdraws. The Live Race moves after every match, as the Live Rankings do.
No. 1. Zverev, already assured of finishing 2026 as year-end No. 1, could rise to No. 1 in the weekly rankings for the first time as early as 2 November. “Once Jannik unfortunately announced he won’t play for the rest of the year, I’m 4,000 points ahead of everyone else, so I trust myself enough that I’m going to win [enough matches],” he said.
Ruud and Gea. Ruud reached the last eight after Felix Auger-Aliassime retired against him in the fourth round, as GTN reported on Wednesday. Gea leaves Shanghai at No. 44 in the Live Rankings and set for his top-50 debut.
What’s next. The semifinals are on Saturday: Zverev against Davidovich Fokina, and Jodar against Medvedev or Paul. The Shanghai Masters final is on Sunday, 18 October.
