ATP Tour

Altmaier survives Rune, sets Shelton showdown in Shanghai

Daniel Altmaier produced a stunning fightback against Holger Rune on Wednesday night to reach the second round of the Rolex Shanghai Masters and set a popcorn showdown with Ben Shelton.

Altmaier, the No. 67 player in the PIF ATP Rankings, recovered from a one-sided opening set to defeat former World No. 4 Rune 1-6, 7-6(5), 6-4 at the penultimate ATP Masters 1000 event of the season.

Rune, competing in just his third tour-level event since rupturing his Achilles last October, made an aggressive, all-out start and raced through the opening set. But the five-time ATP Tour champion dropped serve for the first time at 4-4 in the deciding set.

When serving out the match at 5-4, 30/30, Altmaier then produced a stunning backhand pass to bring up match point. The 27-year-old converted his opportunity to complete the two-hour, 14-minute comeback.

“There were a couple of points where I really had to fight,” Altmaier said of the point at 5-4, 30/30 in the final set. “I’ve been working on that the past few days. My confidence hasn’t been the highest. It paid off in a really special moment today.”

Altmaier improves to 16-26 in 2026, according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index, and will next face World No. 4 Shelton, who reached his first major final at the US Open last month. Altmaier defeated Shelton on clay in Hamburg earlier this year, which was their only previous Lexus ATP Head2Head meeting.

For Rune, the defeat comes after he returned to action last month following surgery and an extensive rehabilitation process. The 23-year-old notched two wins for Denmark at the Davis Cup against Bulgaria, including a victory over Grigor Dimitrov, before falling to Kyrian Jacquet in the opening round in Tokyo.

In other evening action on Day 1 in Shanghai, there was success for two Chinese wild cards, Wu Yibing and Zhou Yi. Wu, who won the silver medal at last week’s Asian Games, overcame lucky loser Michael Zheng 6-3, 7-6(6), while World No. 277 Zhou upset qualifier Mattia Bellucci 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(4).

Wu has set a showdown with top seed Alexander Zverev, while Zhou will next take on 24th seed Lorenzo Musetti.

Arthur Fery earned his first win since reaching the Winston-Salem final in August when he eased past former World No. 3 Marin Cilic 7-6(2), 6-1 on his Shanghai debut. The Briton, who broke through by reaching the semi-finals of his home major at Wimbledon in July, will next meet Karen Khachanov at the Chinese Masters 1000 event.