Top four seeds all make strong starts at Shanghai Masters

The top four seeds at the Shanghai Masters got their campaigns underway in clinical fashion, with Jannik Sinner, Alexander Zverev, Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic all winning in straight sets on Saturday.

Both Alcaraz and Sinner were playing in Shanghai off the back of a gruelling three-hour, 21-minute final in Beijing less than three days ago, but had no issues negating their opening matches.

Alcaraz saw off Chinese teenager Juncheng Shang 6-2, 6-2, easily covering the total games line at most tennis bookmakers as he raced through the clash in just over an hour.

“I’m trying to get the momentum,” the Spaniard declared after his victory.

“I think I’m feeling great on the court, physically I’m feeling good.

“For me, for my tennis, it’s really important to feel that way.

“I’m hitting the ball really, really well as well, so I’m trying to be the same way in the matches.”

For Sinner, he took on world No.93 Taro Daniel and had a similarly one-sided result, prevailing 6-1, 6-4 in less than an hour and 20 minutes.

Djokovic rusty, but gets the job done

Question marks hovered over what kind of level Djokovic would bring to Shanghai, considering he has had an out-of-sorts year, and has spoken openly about wanting to spend more time with his family.

The Serbian did what was needed against young gun Alex Michelsen, however, not playing his best tennis but executing well enough to beat the American 7-6 (3), 7-6 (9).

Djokovic saved set points along the way, and had his serve broken on two occasions, but was pleased with his overall level.

“These conditions I think are quite suitable to him,” shared Djokovic after the match.

“He has a big serve, he has attacking style of tennis, and, yeah, it was very challenging for me at times, particularly the beginning.

“He was all over me, I would say, in the first five games, and took me a little bit of time to get the rust off from not playing an official match for quite a few weeks.

“So, yeah, I found the groove, I served well, and I thought we both played a quite high level of tennis for both sets.”

Zverev was also a little rusty initially against qualifier Mattia Bellucci in his first-round match, but managed to negate the Italian 6-4, 6-2 to book his spot in the third round.

The biggest name to lose on Saturday in Shanghai was sixth seed Andrey Rublev, who fell to rising star Jakub Mensik for the second time this year.

The Czech prevailed 6-7 (7), 6-4, 6-3, recording his third top-10 victory of the season.

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