Taylor Fritz bundled out of Shanghai Masters by big serving Frenchman Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard

Both players utterly spent but only one winner as Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard waged the war against Taylor Fritz on Sunday at the 2025 Shanghai Masters winning through 6-4, 7-5.

Mpetshi Perricard is through to his first ever Last 16 at an ATP 1000 tournament in a new milestone for the big serving Frenchman who also has claimed his first top 10 win in seeing off Fritz.

Scheduling seemed to finally catch up with Fritz who looked completely exhausted at the end of the match. So much so on both ends that the umpire was prolonging the rest periods between points in order to give both enough time to recover as both players were utterly spent by the end of it.

He got broken twice on serve during the contest and didn't generate a single break point with Mpetshi Perricard flying down the other end at around 200km/h and upwards of 235km/h at points as he was dialled in. As ever though in these games featuring the so called 'servebots' it was very much a war of attrition from Mpetshi Perricard's end as despite having the tools to dent the resolve on his own serve, it is less of a formality down the other wing.

But while Fritz saved four break chances, he was under the cosh a lot more with Mpetshi Perricard holding better first serve percentage, first serve points won and second serve points won. He also converted 2/6 break point chances while Fritz got zero anyway.

The first set could've gone even more emphatically in the direction of Mpetshi Perricard as he had break points to go 3-2 up himself early but Fritz claimed them instead but after an emphatic hold he got his reward. He won the next game to break and go 4-3 up before holding again pretty comfortably to make it 5-3.

The first set was sealed from there with Fritz getting minimal chance to muster a break opportunity. The second was more of the servebot war of attrition we were mooting as it was comfortable on both ends of the court between the pair with no break chances and often 40-0 service holds with both looking more and more exhausted. But Mpetshi Perricard stuck around the longest, he managed to break for 6-5 and then held serve to claim the win 7-5.

He now moves through to face Holger Rune. He won earlier this morning seeing off Ugo Humbert 6-4, 6-4. Also wins for Zizou Bergs seeing off Francisco Cerundolo in two sets while Gabriel Diallo played just three games as he saw off David Goffin 3-0. Djokovic and Sinner are both to come later this afternoon.