The seeds keep tumbling at the Shanghai Masters with Casper Ruud becoming the latest player to exit the tournament.
Ruud, who was seeded eighth in the draw, was ousted 7-6(3), 3-6, 6-4, by Hungary’s Fabian Marozsan who is currently ranked 82 places lower than him at 91st in the world. The Norweigan dropped serve only twice and produced 14 aces during the match but it still wasn’t enough to tame his opponent who is playing in the main draw of a Masters event for only the second time in his career.
Marozsan made headlines earlier this year when he stunned Carlos Alcaraz at the Italian Open. Since then he has made steady progress on the Tour by claiming a Challenger title in Italy and winning his first Grand Slam main draw match at the US Open.
“I had great results this year. I beat a few top-seeded players here in Shanghai and in Rome also,” the Hungarian told reporters following his win over Ruud.
“This is just my second Masters tournament, so it’s kind of a new tournament series for me. I’m just very happy to be playing here and try to do my best every time.”
The shock victory might come as a surprise for the 23-year-old given the surface. According to the ITF, coming into this week Marozsan has played 16 tournaments on clay so far this season compared to only nine on a hard court. He only played one event on the grass which was at Wimbledon where he won three matches in qualifying before losing in the first round to David Goffin.
“I never played so many matches on hard court,” he commented.
“The biggest tournaments we are playing are on a hard court on the ATP Tour, so I have to improve my game.”
Marozsan will be hoping to continue his fairytale run in the quarter-finals where he will play either 16th seed Hubert Hurkacz or home favourite Zhang Zhizhen. It is the first time he has reached the last eight of an ATP Tour event outside of the Challenger circuit.
Meanwhile, Ruud has now suffered 11 defeats to players ranked 51st or lower in the world this season. Since 2000, only three top 10 players have suffered more losses than him within the same season on the ATP Tour – Nikolay Davydenko (13), Yevgeny Kafelnikov (12) and Rainer Schuettler (12).
Ruud is the seventh top-10 seed to exit Shanghai this year.
