Ninth–seeded Grigor Dimitrov will face unseeded Jakub Mensik in the fourth round of the Shanghai Masters tournament. The winner will face either Novak Djokovic or Roman Safiullin in the quarterfinals. Here is our forecast for the match.
Jakub Mensik rose to 56th place in the live table due to reaching the fourth round of the Masters series tournament on hard courts, which is his personal record and his first entry into the top 60 of the world ranking.
This year, the Czech reached the final of the ATP hard court tournament, which took place eight months ago in Doha. He has also shown good form on the ground, but this is only the third time he has won two matches in the main draw of a tournament on hard courts.
He won three times in this tournament, for the first time since Doha, defeating Pedro Martinez, sixth seed Andrei Rublev and Alexander Shevchenko in tense matches decided in final sets.
If Grigor Dimitrov defeats Mensik, he will rise to ninth place in the ATP Live rankings. At the moment, he is in tenth place and retains his chances of qualifying for the final tournament in Turin.
The Bulgarian has won one trophy on the ATP hard courts this season, having won the title in Brisbane earlier in the year. He also reached the finals in Marseille and the Miami Masters, and reached the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open in August.
After finishing his career at that tournament, this is his first singles tournament, although he won the Laver Cup. In Shanghai, the 33–year-old tennis player won against Ziza Bergs and 20th seed Alexei Popyrin. We assume that he will defeat Mensik.