Seed cull as Holger Rune, Alexander Zverev, Alex De Minaur among seven players already eliminated at Shanghai Masters

The early days of the Shanghai Open saw the elimination of 7 seeded players, including Holger Rune, Alexander Zverev, and Alex de Minaur.

Surprises are common in tournaments, but it's rare to see so many favorites eliminated so early, considering that only half of the second-round matches have been played.

In the bottom half of the draw, 14 out of 16 matches have already been contested, and in half of them, a seeded player was defeated. Perhaps the biggest surprise was world No. 3 Holger Rune, who was thoroughly outplayed by world No. 122 Brandon Nakashima, suffering a 6-0, 6-2 defeat, which was the most one-sided loss of Rune's career.

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The second top-10 player to fall in the first round was world No. 9 Alexander Zverev, who had previously won the Chengdu Open and reached the semifinals of the China Open in the past two weeks. This time, Roman Safiulin dashed Zverev's hopes with a convincing 6-3, 6-1 victory, avenging his recent loss to Zverev in the Chengdu final.

Three more players within the top 20 also made early exits, with Alex de Minaur (11th) falling to Fabian Marozsan (6-3, 7-5), Felix Auger-Aliassime (14th) losing to Marton Fucsovics (7-6, 4-6, 6-3), and Lorenzo Musetti (17th) being defeated by qualifier Yu-hsiou Hsu (6-3, 6-4).

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Additionally, the 23rd seed Tallon Griekspoor retired from his match against Dusan Lajovic when he was trailing 4-6, 2-3. The 28th seed Tomas Etcheverry also failed to secure a victory against a spirited Zhizhen Zhang (world No. 60), the only Chinese player still in the competition.

As a result, only one of the third-round matches in the bottom half of the draw will feature a showdown between two seeded players, with Casper Ruud (8th) facing Christopher Eubanks (29th).

However, there are still two matches to be played in this part of the draw, with Jannik Sinner (6th) looking to continue his streak against Marcos Giron, and Daniil Medvedev (2nd) facing off against Chilean Christian Garin.

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