ZVEREV REMAINS ON FIRE IN SHANGHAI, LONDON CHANCES IMPROVE FOR GOFFIN AND KYRGIOS

Written by: Staff on 11th October 2016

ZVEREV REMAINS ON FIRE IN SHANGHAI, LONDON CHANCES IMPROVE FOR GOFFIN AND KYRGIOS |

@David__Goffin moves on to R2 w 46 63 75 victory against del Potro. Plays the beardy Benoit Paire next. #SHRolexMasters – Photo by @SHRolexMasters via Twitter.

By Ricky Dimon

Alexander Zverev maintained his fine form by taking out No. 8 seed Marin Cilic 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 in the second round of the Shanghai Rolex Masters on Tuesday night. Zverev faced only one break point–and saved it–in the last two sets before getting the job done in one hour and 54 minutes.

Thus continues a fall hot streak for the 19-year-old German, who captured his first ATP title in St. Petersburg and reached the quarterfinals in Beijing. Prior to beating Cilic in Shanghai, Zverev disposed of John Isner 6-4, 6-2 during first-round action.

As for Cilic, the loss puts a significant dent in his bid to qualify for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals. The 11th-ranked Croat is currently in 10th place in the race to London and will be 615 points behind the all-important No. 8 spot (held by Dominic Thiem) after this week. Tomas Berdych (290 points ahead of Cilic) would be the first alternate if the regular season ended now.

Cilic’s setback is a bonus for World Tour Finals hopefuls David Goffin and Nick Kyrgios. Both players still have a ton of work to do in order be in serious contention, but they reached the Tokyo final last week to enhance their standing (Kyrgios won 7-5 in the third set). They continued their winning ways in Shanghai on Tuesday, when Goffin overcame Juan Martin Del Potro 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 and Kyrgios rolled over Sam Querrey 6-4, 6-4.

Goffin, who would pass Cilic in the 2016 race with one more victory this week, is 11th–one spot ahead of the 12th-place Kyrgios. Both men, however, would have to win the Shanghai title in order to overtake Thiem.

“He’s playing great,” Del Potro said of the Belgian. “He made finals last week. He’s so fast on the baseline. I think he’s a great player to play. But anyways, I was close to winning. I played a good match. For me, it has been a great season–trying to do a good comeback after many injuries. This is just a match.”

Rafael Nadal’s first match in Shanghai will come on Wednesday and, like Thiem, he has not come close to wrapping up a spot in London. In fact, the fifth-ranked Spaniard is just 95 points ahead of the 23-year-old Austrian.

Viktor Troicki is Nadal’s opening opponent and the Serb is a hopeless 0-5 in the head-to-head series, including 0-4 on hard courts and 1-12 in total sets. Their most competitive encounter came six years ago on the Asian swing, where Nadal prevailed 7-6(4), 4-6, 7-6(7) in the Tokyo semis. They have squared off just once since then–the 14-time major champion triumphed 7-6(3), 6-3 to capture a title on the grass courts of Stuttgart.