De Minaur shakes off injury doubts, sinks Khachanov to set up Zverev QF

Eight days ago Alex de Minaur limped out of the China Open final, unable to continue against Novak Djokovic after dropping a first-set tie-break. On Tuesday in Shanghai, the Australian looked like a man with no physical worries at all, beating 26th seed Karen Khachanov 6-3 6-4 to reach the quarter-finals of the Rolex Shanghai Masters.

The win was clinical, and it carried weight well beyond one round. De Minaur, who reports say struck 22 winners to Khachanov's 14, moved up to seventh in the Race to Turin, overtaking both Djokovic and Frances Tiafoe, who have already left Shanghai. It is also, according to Yahoo Sports, the tenth ATP Masters 1000 quarter-final of his career.

Serve sets the tone

De Minaur's game is usually built on legs and return, but here it was his serve that carried him. Australian media reported that he won around 80 per cent of the points behind his first delivery. He made the first break in the eighth game of the opening set, finishing the point with a backhand down the line, and then served out the set to love with an ace.

The second set followed a similar pattern. De Minaur broke twice more, and although Khachanov had a look at a break point while the Australian was serving for the match, he saved it and closed out the win in straight sets.

"It was really important for me to serve well and I think I definitely did that, especially down the stretch," de Minaur said afterwards, as quoted by ABC.

The body is holding up

The bigger question coming into the week was his health. Reports differ on exactly what went wrong in Beijing, with the problem described as being in the hip or groin area. Whatever it was, de Minaur said it is getting better day by day.

"Ultimately I've been getting better and better every day. Today was by far my best match," he told ABC. Speaking to other outlets, he said it had been "seven to eight days" since the final and that his condition had been "feeling better and better every single day".

That is good news for his Turin hopes. With the ATP Finals scheduled for 15-22 November and several rivals already out of Shanghai, a deep run here could go a long way towards securing his place among the top eight.

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Next up: the new world No. 1

The quarter-final draw has given him the toughest test available. De Minaur will face Alexander Zverev, who wrapped up the year-end No. 1 ranking earlier this week and then edged Alexander Bublik in a match that went to a deciding-set tie-break, despite continuing problems with his ankle.

On paper the matchup favours the German. According to ABC and Yahoo Sports, de Minaur trails their head-to-head 4-8. Recent form points the other way, though: the Australian won both of their latest encounters at the Laver Cup, the most recent one only a fortnight ago. Before Zverev's match against Bublik was decided, de Minaur called him the "number one player in the world".

For Zverev, it will be another chance to show his ankle can hold up at the business end of a Masters event. For de Minaur, a win would put him into the Shanghai semi-finals and further strengthen his position in the race for one of the remaining Turin spots, with only a few weeks of the regular season left.