Sinner slams Shelton again; Irate Tsitsipas erupts

Jannik Sinner repeated his Shanghai Masters thrashing of Ben Shelton on Wednesday, with the top seed sending the American to defeat for the second year in succession at the event.

The world No. 1 posted a 6-4, 7-6(1) victory to power into his seventh quarter-final of the season as he seeks title No. 7 of 2024.

“It was very tough,” Sinner said. “But if I look at the positive picture, how I ended the match, I tried to stay a bit more aggressive, which I’ve done.

“This hopefully can give me confidence for the next round.”

Sinner notched his 62nd victory of a season which has already yielded two Grand Slam trophies for the 23-year-old Italian; he has reached the last eight of 14 events he has entered this season.

Shelton got off in a storm as he won his first four service games to love before Sinner started taking control.

The top seed won the opening set and saved five break points midway through the second before eventually running to victory in the tiebreaker in 88 minutes.

Daniil Medvedev won a controversial match – and claimed his 10th victory over Stefanos Tsitsipas – advancing into the Sinner showdown 7-6(3), 6-3.

The volatile Tsitsipas stopped play for five minutes as he argued with chair umpire Fergus Murphy, whom he claimed was “against” him after receiving a warning for taking too long on serve.

“Why are you guys against me so much? The last few months have been terrible. I don’t understand what’s got into you,” the aggravated player said.

The Greek sat on his chair in protest for five minutes refusing to play before the spat was smoothed over by the tournament supervisor and Medvedev carried on to his 7-6 (3), 6-3 win.