Australian Alex de Minor secured a place in the top eight of the “Masters 1000“ tournament in Shanghai after a clean victory over Karen Khachanov. Seeded 9th in the schedule, De Minor prevailed 6:3, 6:4 after an hour and 25 minutes of play, showing an extremely solid level and tactical discipline from the bottom of the court.
The Australian entered the match extremely focused and delivered an early blow, achieving a quick breakthrough. Using his high speed and unwavering first serve, in which he won an impressive 80% of the points, De Minor quickly imposed control over events. At the same time, Khachanov was having serious difficulties in the games, he could not find his rhythm and did not have any opportunities to turn things around, losing the opening set 3:6.
The picture on the court did not change significantly in the second half. De Minor continued to harass his opponent with impeccable defense and aggressive placements on the Russian's serve, which brought him another decisive break. Although Khachanov received his first break point at the very end of the match, the Australian reacted like a champion – neutralized the danger, then ended the dispute with a combination of a powerful return and an ace for 6:4.
In another dramatic round of 16 clash in the tournament in Shanghai, young Frenchman Arthur Gea created another surprise. After shocking Ben Shelton in the previous round, this time Gea also threw out the Czech hope Jakub Menšík from the tournament, prevailing 7:6(4), 6:4. With this, he recorded another scalp of a tennis player from the top 15 and confirmed his excellent form.