ATP Tour

Davidovich Fokina stops Jodar for Shanghai title

Alejandro Davidovich Fokina completed a week of thrilling escapes to earn the biggest title of his career on Sunday at the Rolex Shanghai Masters.

The 27-year-old Spaniard clawed past his countryman Rafael Jodar 1-6, 7-6(5), 6-4 inside Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena to earn his first ATP Masters 1000 trophy. Davidovich Fokina, who saved a match point against Frances Tiafoe in the third round and also rallied from a set down to defeat both Hubert Hurkacz and Alexander Zverev en route to the final, found a path to victory against Jodar even after trailing by a set and a break at 1-6, 2-3.

“I don’t have any words right now,” Davidovich Fokina said. “I have a blank mind. I don’t know what to say and I don’t know how I feel. Just a huge relief. After the first set I had to keep trying, keep pushing, like every match in the tournament. In the tie-break, I believed in myself again and tried to play the ball. He was playing huge tennis.

“In the third set, maybe I had a bit more fitness physically. He’s an amazing player and it was very tough to play against him today.”

With his two-hour, 28-minute win, Davidovich Fokina claimed his third and biggest ATP Tour trophy. Having lost his first five tour-level finals, including his only previous Masters 1000 championship match in Monte-Carlo in 2022, he has now won his past three after his title runs in Mallorca and Chengdu earlier this year.

That run in Chengdu in late September marked a spectacular return to the Tour for Davidovich Fokina, who had missed the previous two months due to a back injury. Now also the champion in Shanghai, the Spaniard is on a 10-match winning streak on Chinese soil.

“Of course I am very grateful for the team I have,” Davidovich Fokina said. “They’ve supported me every day for many years and of course this year was a tough one. Not only two months out, I also skipped a couple more tournaments this year with [other] injuries. So it was not an easy one… I cannot describe with words how thankful I am [for my team].

“I remember now Arthur Fils, who is a very good friend of mine and skipped a lot of tournaments this year. He came back stronger, winning matches. So that gave me a lot of power, that if he could do it, I could do it too.”

Following his title run in Shanghai, Davidovich Fokina will on Monday rise 13 spots to a career-high No. 13 in the PIF ATP Rankings. Meanwhile Jodar, who is enjoying one of the standout debut seasons in ATP Tour history, will rise two spots to a joint-career-high No. 11.

Had Jodar won Sunday’s final, he would have sealed his Top-10 debut. Although the 20-year-old will have to wait longer for that milestone, he remains on track to qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals: The Spaniard will leave China ninth in the PIF ATP Live Race To Turin, just inside the qualification cut for the prestigious season finale.

Both Jodar and Davidovich Fokina notched impressive semi-final upsets on Saturday in Shanghai, against former champion Daniil Medvedev and top seed Zverev, respectively. Yet it was Jodar who carried momentum from his last-four exploits most visibly into the championship match: The 12th seed came charging out of the blocks in his first Lexus ATP Head2Head meeting with Davidovich Fokina, breaking serve in the second game.

There was little subsequent let up from Jodar, who fired a clean backhand winner to break again for 5-1, and went on to claim the opening set without facing a break point on his own serve. Notably, the #NextGenATP star had also won all seven points longer than nine shots in the first set, a reflection of his all-around dominance up to that point.

Davidovich Fokina belatedly found his feet early in the second set. Although he again found himself a break down at 2-3, he immediately hit back after sprinting to the net to convert his second break point of the next game, ending up sprawled across the court in typically show-stopping fashion.

Davidovich Fokina continued to dig deep at key moments and subsequently fended off a break point to hold for 4-3, two more to hold for 5-4, and two more again to hold for 6-5. Just as he had in his semi-final victory against Zverev, Davidovich Fokina then crucuially held his nerve in a second-set tie-break to force a decider.

The players promptly exchanged breaks of serve at the start of the third set, but from there it was Davidovich Fokina who appeared the more physically fresh. He broke again in the fifth game and remained in control from there to complete a win in which he converted three of seven points he earned, according to Infosys ATP Stats.