SHANGHAI — Alexander Zverev has locked up the year-end No. 1 ranking, and on Saturday he spent his post-match comments explaining what that has cost him. “I’m not a robot, I’m a human being,” he said after losing his Shanghai Masters semifinal to Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 5-7, 6-4, 6-3, according to the ATP Tour’s account of his remarks.
It is an abrupt end for a player who won the 2026 US Open in September and, according to the tour, Roland Garros before that. Davidovich Fokina, 27, arrived in Shanghai ranked No. 26 and seeded 25th, which the tour says makes him the fourth lowest-ranked finalist in the tournament’s history. He has won nine consecutive matches in China, and last month he took the Chengdu title.
The other semifinal supplied his opponent. Rafael Jodar, 20, beat Daniil Medvedev 6-3, 6-4 in one hour and 44 minutes to become the youngest finalist in the tournament’s history, the tour said. He began the year outside the top 100, and he is the first man born in 2006 or later to reach a Masters 1000 final. Sunday’s match will be the ninth all-Spanish final at that level.
Zverev’s explanation was specific. After the US Open, he said, he had one day off in total, and the ATP Tour reported that he went from there to the Laver Cup, then to Beijing and Shanghai. He said he “carried a little bit of injury” and “carried fatigue into the tournament,” adding that he was “okay to lose to a player like this today.”
Davidovich Fokina’s week was no stroll either. According to the tour’s match report, he beat Frances Tiafoe and Hubert Hurkacz in third-set tie-breaks earlier in Shanghai and missed the North American hard-court swing in August with an injury. He still trails Zverev 2-6 in their head-to-head.
Jodar had rallied from a set down in each of his first four matches, then needed only two sets against Medvedev, according to the tour’s report on his win. He said he was happy with how he handled “the important moments” in the first set. A title on Sunday would take him into the top 10 of the rankings for the first time.
The comments quoted in the tour’s report do not specify Zverev’s injury. Whether the ATP Tour‘s year-end No. 1 recovers in time for his next event is the open question.
