Alejandro Davidovich Fokina beats top seed Alexander Zverev 5-7, 6-4, 6-3, and Rafael Jodar knocks out Daniil Medvedev 6-3, 6-4, in the semi-finals of the Shanghai Masters on Saturday 17 October 2026. The final is an all-Spanish affair, on Sunday 18 October at 4:30pm local time (10:30am in Paris).
What came next: Davidovich Fokina beats Jodar in the final for his first Masters 1000 title.
How did Davidovich Fokina beat Zverev?
By turning the match around after losing the opening set. The Spaniard levels 6-4, then breaks Zverev early in the third set, helped by a double fault from the German at the start of the set, and holds on to his lead: 2 hours 6 minutes on court, 82% of points won behind his first serve.
"It doesn't matter the result, I am just thinking about every ball," said Davidovich Fokina.
It is only his second win in eight meetings with Zverev, the sixth of his career against a top-5 player and his first this season. He has now won nine matches in a row in China, including the title in Chengdu. Ranked 26th when he arrived in Shanghai, he is up to 15th in the live rankings, and becomes the fourth lowest-ranked finalist in the tournament's history.
He had knocked out Frances Tiafoe, saving a match point, and Hubert Hurkacz, both in a final-set tie-break, before Arthur Gea's retirement in the quarter-finals.
How did Rafael Jodar beat Medvedev?
Without dropping a set, for the first time this week: he had lost the opening set in each of his first four matches. The first set is tight, with break points on both sides; in the second, Jodar lets a break lead slip, then wins three of the last four games. 1 hour 44 minutes on court, 22 winners to 14.
"It was a very tough match. Daniil is a very tough player. He played great today, so I had to play my best level to play him," said Jodar.
At 20, he becomes the youngest finalist in the tournament's history, and the first man born in 2006 or later to reach a Masters 1000 final. It is his second top-10 win, against the 2019 Shanghai champion. He is also the second-youngest player to win twenty Masters 1000 matches in a season, behind Rafael Nadal, who won 28 in 2005, aged 19.
Jodar started the year outside the top 100. He wins his first title in Marrakech, loses the final of the ATP 500 in Washington in August, and sits ninth in the Race to Turin, the year-end Finals, 279 points ahead of Alex de Minaur, with Jannik Sinner out for the rest of the season.
What is at stake in the final?
Spain has its first Shanghai champion. Created in 2009, the tournament is the only one of the nine Masters 1000 events never won by a Spanish man. Rafael Nadal (2009 and 2017), David Ferrer (2011) and Roberto Bautista Agut (2016) all lost in the final there.
It is the ninth all-Spanish Masters 1000 final, and the first on hard courts: the previous eight were all played on clay. Neither man has ever won a Masters 1000. Jodar plays his first final at this level; Davidovich Fokina, 27, his second, after Monte-Carlo in 2022, lost to Stefanos Tsitsipas. The two have never met on the main tour.
Sources
ATP Tour — Davidovich Fokina upsets Zverev in Shanghai
ATP Tour — Jodar storms into first Masters 1000 final
The Sports Encounter — Shanghai Masters: Jodar, Davidovich Set All-Spanish Final