Medvedev returns after disqualification

SHOCK KNOCKOUT: US Open finalist Ben Shelton was caught off-guard by Arthur Gea yesterday, after skipping the Japan Open, which ended last week, due to fitness concerns

Daniil Medvedev has won his first match since being disqualified at the China Open for hitting a spectator in the eye with a ball he hit into the stands.

Medvedev beat Jan-Lennard Struff 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 in a second-round match on Saturday at the Shanghai Masters, an ATP 1000 tennis event.

Medvedev, who now holds a 10-2 career edge over Struff, had been disqualified during his semi-final on Monday last week against Novak Djokovic for hitting the spectator with a ball the Russian player had hit into the stands at Beijing.

Russia’s Daniil Medvedev returns to Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff during their men’s singles match at the Shanghai Masters tennis tournament in Shanghai, China, on Saturday.

Photo: AFP

Medvedev, who apologized after the incident, saying it was an accident, lost the US$285,000 prize money he would have received for making the semi-finals in Beijing.

It was the fifth-seeded Medvedev’s first match since the disqualification. He had a bye in the first round.

Second-seeded Carlos Alcaraz, who won last week’s Japan Open, had a 6-3, 6-3 win over Juan Manuel Cerundolo in a night match in Shanghai. It extended his winning streak to seven matches.

While Alcaraz had a beard and the start of a mustache in his Japan Open trophy photos, he only had the mustache in Saturday night’s match in Shanghai.

“It’s going to stay for [the] week. I always wanted to step on the court at least once with the mustache,” Alcaraz said after win. “So before Tokyo, it was, it was like, ‘Alright, if I win the tournament, we all have to do the mustache.’”

In other second-round matches on Saturday, fourth-seeded Felix Auger-Aliassime beat Camilo Ugo Carabelli 4-6, 7-6 (1), 7-5.

No. 1 Jannik Sinner withdrew from Shanghai this week when he announced he was taking the rest of this year off because of a right knee injury.

Meanwhile, world No. 56 Arthur Gea stunned Ben Shelton in straight sets in the third round of the Shanghai Masters yesterday as the US Open finalist became the biggest casualty so far.

“I got outplayed today,” world No. 4 Shelton told reporters.

“My body wasn’t ready,” he said, playing in Shanghai as his first tournament since the US Open, apart from the Davis Cup last month.

He skipped the Japan Open that ended last week due to fitness concerns.

“That’s just the way this tour is sometimes,” he said, adding that jet lag had also taken a toll.

Gea is to play either Francisco Cerundolo or Jakub Mensik next.

“Amazing, to be honest,” he said after his first win over a top-10 player.

He said his game was “all about focus, concentration” and staying “ready for every point.”

Gea added that he has been “more confident on court” following a breakout year that saw him clinch his first professional title in July at a 250-level event in Los Cabos.

He stormed to a 5-3 lead in the first set before the 24-year-old American Shelton came back fighting, levelling to 5-5 with a clutch backhand volley at the net. The two players were neck and neck in the tie-break until Gea sneaked ahead to win the first set point.

Third seed Shelton forced his way into another tie-break in the second set as the match went past two hours, but faltered as a charging Gea clinched victory at his first chance.