Alex de Minaur recorded his 50th tour-level win of the season at the Rolex Shanghai Masters on Wednesday, as he eased past Nuno Borges 7-5, 6-2 to reach his seventh ATP Masters 1000 quarter-final.
De Minaur is only the third man to reach the 50-win mark by 2025, joining Carlos Alcaraz (67) and Taylor Fritz (50), with the Australian taking 37 victories in the Tour on hard courts. De Minaur played with confidence and controlled aggression against Borges, hitting 19 winners to just 10 unforced errors on his way to a one hour and 47 minute victory in the pair’s first Lexus ATP Head2Head meeting.
De Minaur’s previous best season in 2024 culminated in 47 wins and two titles, according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index. After lifting the trophy at the ATP 500 event in Washington in August, the 26-year-old will be chasing his second title of the year in Shanghai, where he will next face Daniil Medvedev or #NextGenATP American Learner Tien.
De Minaur arrived in Shanghai after a semi-final in Beijing and his latest run further boosts his chances of qualifying for the Nitto ATP Finals. The 10-time tour-level champion is seventh in the PIF ATP Live Race To Turin, 740 points ahead of 10th-ranked Felix Auger-Aliassime, who is the first player to fall outside the Top 8 as ninth-ranked Jack Draper is sidelined for the rest of the year with injury.
De Minaur, who made his debut at the prestigious year-end event in 2024, would rise to fourth in the Live Race as he captures his first Masters 1000 title in Shanghai.
Earlier, Arthur Rinderknech backed up his victory against world number 3 Alexander Zverev by beating Jiri Lehecka 6-3, 7-6(5) to reach his first Masters 1000 quarter-final. The Frenchman, who is ranked number 43 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings, has joined his cousin Valentin Vacherot in the last eight. After his victory, Rinderknech wrote a message of support for qualifier Vacherot, the first Monegasque player in history to reach a quarter-final at tour level.
[NEWSLETTER FORM]
#Minaur #reaches #big #milestone #advances #Shanghai #QFs #closer #Turin