The biggest stars are often planned to play under the evening lights on the ATP tour, but rarely do two of the greats of the game in the same session.
Shanghai Night Ticket holders of the Rolex Shanghai Masters might have expected them to see Jannik Sinner or Novak Djokovic play during the night session on Sunday, with the number 2 and no. 5 players in the PIF ATP ranking lists both in the lower half of the Draw. Instead, those happy fans will have the chance to see both giants of the game.
At 6.30 pm local time, Djokovic opens the evening session against the German qualification Yannick Hanfmann in the second Lexus ATP Head2head meeting of the couple. That match will be followed by Sinner versus 27th Seed Tallon Greek Spoor, with the Italian bid to extend his perfect record against the Dutchman to 7-0.
“I am very early in my career, but I am very happy to play after Novak. It’s great for the fans, it is great to hopefully watch tennis in both games,” Sinner said, discussing the hottest ticket in the sport.
The double bill comes in a suitable time, together with the 20th anniversary of the Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena, which was initially built to organize the Nitto ATP Finals (then the ATP World Tour Finals) of 2005-08. The stadium has a retractable steel roof that opens and closes. When it is closed, the roof looks like a flowering Magnolia, the official flower of Shanghai.
With Sinner and Djokovic set to compete in the same session on Sunday, they could later be confronted at the ATP Masters 1000 event in the same competition. If both players note three more victories, they would meet in the semi -final. That potential meeting would be their 11th Lexus ATP Head2head showdown; Sinner leads the series 6-4 with victories in their last five meetings, including this season in Roland Garros and Wimbledon.
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