Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov further strengthened his bid for a place at the Nitto ATP Finals on Thursday by reaching the Shanghai Rolex Masters quarter-finals at the expense of American Sam Querrey, another contender for next month’s season finale.

Sixth seed Dimitrov recorded his 40th match win of a career-best year (40-16 overall) with a 6-3, 7-6(3) victory over No. 10 seed Querrey in 81 minutes at the Qi Zhong Stadium in Shanghai. He will next challenge top seed and 2009 finalist Rafael Nadal or Fabio Fognini of Italy in Friday’s quarter-finals.

Dimitrov is currently at No. 5 in the Emirates ATP Race To London with 3,455 points, and is now 270 points behind fourth-placed Austrian Dominic Thiem (3,725). Querrey remains at No. 11 with 2,525 points. Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Alexander Zverev have already clinched three of the eight berths at the Nitto ATP Finals, to be held at The O2 in London from 12-19 November.

The 26-year-old Dimitrov broke Querrey in the fourth game of the pair’s third FedEx ATP Head2Head series (3-0), but could not convert three set point opportunities on the American’s serve at 5-3. Querrey took a 2-0 lead in the second set, but was immediately pinned back and there were no further chances to break through to the tie-break.

Dimitrov has won three ATP World Tour titles in 2017 at the Brisbane International presented by Suncorp (d. Nishikori), Garanti Koza Sofia Open (d. Goffin) and the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati (d. Kyrgios).

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The Top 4 seeds headline third round action at the Shanghai Rolex Masters on Thursday with  Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Alexander Zverev and Marin Cilic leading the way.

In the opening match on Stadium, No. 10 seed Sam Querrey takes on No. 6 seed Grigor Dimitrov, who has won both previous meetings. If Querrey reaches his first Shanghai quarter-final, he will move past Pablo Carreno Busta for the final position in the Emirates ATP Race to London. 

View FedEx ATP Head2Head matchup for Day 5 of the Shanghai Rolex Masters and vote for who you think will win!
Zverev vs del Potro | Dimitrov vs Querrey | Nadal vs Fognini | Federer vs Dolgopolov

In the next match on, No. 16 seed and 2013 finalist Juan Martin del Potro meets Zverev for the first time. Last week the 20-year-old German became the third player to clinch a spot in the Nitto ATP Finals in London. The 29-year-old Argentine is 3-9 vs. Top 10 opponents this season. Next up is Cilic against Steve Johnson, who is one of three Americans remaining (Isner, Querrey) in the third round for the first time in tournament history (since 2009). Cilic is 3-0 against Johnson.

In the evening session, Nadal comes in with a 13-match winning streak and looks for his 10th win over Fabio Fognini. Nadal, who reached the Shanghai final in 2009, is 9-3 lifetime against the Italian, winning the last four meetings. In the final match, Federer looks to remain unbeaten (4-0) against qualifier Alexandr Dolgopolov, who has never won a set (0-9) against the Swiss. 

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Viktor Troicki struck again at the Shanghai Rolex Masters on Wednesday. The Serbian earned the biggest win of his season by knocking off Nitto ATP Finals hopeful Dominic Thiem 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(5) to advance to the third round of the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament in China.

Troicki had been 0-4 against Top 10 players this season. But the Serbian earned another chance at the game’s best by beating #NextGenATP wild card Denis Shapovalov in the Shanghai first round, and he recovered from an early hiccup in the third-set tie-break against Thiem to notch the win.

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Troicki led 5/2 in the tie-break and had the match on his racquet. But the 31 year old lost the first point and double faulted at 5/3, handing it back to Thiem at 5/4. The Belgrade native rebounded, though, smashing a backhand up the line on his first match point.

It’s the second Top 10 win in Shanghai for Troicki in as many years. Last year, he beat Rafael Nadal in the second round in Shanghai. He went on to fall to eventual finalist Roberto Bautista Agut in the Round of 16.

Troicki is 1-10 during Round of 16 matches at Masters 1000 events. He’ll try to improve that mark when he faces American John Isner, who beat #NextGenATP Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas 7-6(2), 7-6(9). Isner was actually out-aced in the match (14 to 16), but saved all five of his break points to advance to the Shanghai third round.

London Doubles Hopeful Advances In Shanghai

Raven Klaasen and Rajeev Ram moved a step closer to qualifying for their second consecutive Nitto ATP Finals in London. Klaasen/Ram escaped a tight second-round match in Shanghai 6-4, 7-6(4) against Marcelo Demoliner and Fabio Fognini to move into the quarter-finals.

Klaasen/Ram now have 2,975 points in the Emirates ATP Doubles Race To London, good enough for eighth place in the standings. The top eight teams qualify for the prestigious season-ending tournament, to be held 12-19 November at The O2 in London.

Top seeds Henri Kontinen and John Peers advanced by walkover against Nick Kyrgios and Lucas Pouille because Kyrgios was suffering from a viral illness.

Roger Federer had to fight but eventually came through a tight opener on Wednesday at the Shanghai Rolex Masters, beating Argentine Diego Schwartzman 7-6(4), 6-4 to advance to the third round of the season’s penultimate ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament.

Federer improved to 4-0 against Schwartzman in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series and celebrated his 40^th match win of the year with the straight-sets victory. The 36-year-old Swiss is now 40-4 during this comeback season.

“I think I served well. I had good concentration. Had good energy, as well, which I think is always important early on in a tournament,” Federer said.

During his first match in Shanghai since 2015, Federer was aggressive as he has been all season. He stepped into flat backhands and attacked the net, winning 14/24 net points. But the second seed did have to shake off a bit of rust in the big moments.

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Before Wednesday, he hadn’t played a tour-level match since 6 September, when he lost to Juan Martin del Potro in the US Open quarter-finals, and Federer saw break point after break point disappear in the first set.

Schwartzman, though, had much to do with it that as well. The 5’7” right-hander is enjoying his best season. He has climbed to a career-high No. 26 in the Emirates ATP Rankings and was coming off a semi-final run at the Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Championships 2017 in Tokyo (l. to eventual champion Goffin).

The Argentine fended off break points at 1-2 and again at 2-3 before Federer converted in that sixth game to lead. Serving to go up 5-2, though, the 2014 titlist was broken. At 3-4, Federer again had two more chances to break but Schwartzman saved them all, and they headed to a tie-break, where Federer overcame an early mini-break for the one-set lead.

“I knew going in it was not going to be easy. He’s had a great run in recent weeks and months. I really felt that he was confident. Shaking off misses, no problem. He was serving well. You could see he was taking the right decisions on his groundstrokes,” Federer said.

“As an opponent, you feel that. You could see there was a sort of an ease about his game today. I felt like that was going to be dangerous down the stretch of any set. I felt that tie-break was tough. I was down and then came up with some really good shot-making after that in the ‘breaker to really turn it around.” 

Federer made life more straightforward during the second set. He broke to love to start and cruised to his 28^th hard-court match win of the season (28-3). The right-hander is going for sixth tour-level title of the year and his third Masters 1000 crown, having won the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells in March and the Miami Open presented by Itau in April.

“I think getting the break early in the second set gave me the chance to try a few more things, play more relaxed, go for my shots more, and then I was able to bring it home, coming back from love/30 I think in the last game,” Federer said. “So it was a good match for me. I’m actually very happy with my level.” 

He will next face Ukraine’s Alexander Dolgopolov, who beat Spaniard Feliciano Lopez 7-6(4), 1-6, 6-4.

Rafael Nadal continued his imperious run of form on Wednesday when he extended his winning streak to 13 matches with victory at the Shanghai Rolex Masters.

The top seed, seeking his seventh tour-level crown of the year, knocked out #NextGenATP American Jared Donaldson 6-2, 6-1 in 54 minutes on a rain-hit day at the Qi Zhong Stadium.

Nadal, the 2009 finalist in Shanghai, had to bide his time to notch his first service break. At 2-3, Donaldson dropped to 0/40 and held off five break points before his Spanish opponent clinched the game in a run of seven straight games – from 2-2 in the first set to a 3-0 lead in the second set. He broke 21-year-old Donaldson, a contender for next month’s Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan, for a fourth time to take a 5-1 lead in the second set.

The Spanish superstar will next take a 9-3 FedEx ATP Head2Head series lead into the third round against Italian Fabio Fognini, winning their two 2017 meetings in Miami and Madrid.

Nadal, who returned to No. 1 in the Emirates ATP Rankings on 21 August, is seeking to become year-end No. 1 for the fourth time (2008, 2010, 2013). He has amassed a 62-9 match record in 2017, including trophies at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters (d. Ramos-Vinolas), the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell (d. Thiem), the Mutua Madrid Open (d. Thiem), Roland Garros (d. Wawrinka), the US Open (d. Anderson) and last week’s China Open in Beijing (d. Kyrgios).

The 31-year-old Nadal has also clinched his place at Nitto ATP Finals, to be held at The O2 in London from 12-19 November.

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