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Sinner avenges Shanghai defeat to birthday boy Shelton

Jannik Sinner has avenged his defeat to Ben Shelton in the fourth round of last year's Shanghai Masters with a 6-4 7-6 (7-1) victory to spoil the 22-year-old American's birthday.

Like last year, the duel again featured some incredible shot-making and serving dominance but this time the 23-year old Italian prevailed to improve his record against Shelton to 4-1.

"Happy how I handled this situation, it's obviously a position where I have been last year, and where I am right now, it's different, so I'm happy to be in the position where I am," Sinner said.

Sinner's break in the ninth game was all that separated the duo in the opening set. Both players then dominated on their own serve through the second before the Italian sped away in the tiebreak and won the last seven points of the match to advance to his seventh ATP Masters 1000 quarter-final of the year.

He will play Daniil Medvedev, who earlier beat long-time rival Stefanos Tsitsipas 7-6 (7-3) 6-3 in a stormy affair during which the Greek player launched into a long rant against chair umpire Fergus Murphy over a time violation call and initially refused to continue playing.

"You have never played tennis in your life. You have no clue about tennis, it seems like," Tsitsipas said to Murphy. "Definitely you've had no career. You probably played serve-and-volley every single time.

"Anyways, tennis is a physical sport and we need some time over there. You have to show some compassion because you aren't showing any.

"It's a physical sport. We are not throwing darts out here, okay?

"If it's going to be unfair, I need to talk to the supervisor. You seem like you have no idea what you're doing," Tsitsipas continued as the crowd began to slow clap.

In a similar incident the day prior, Frances Tiafoe cursed repeatedly at a chair umpire after losing his third round match and later apologised.

World No.2 Carlos Alcaraz, who won the China Open in a thriller against Sinner last week, made it 12 consecutive wins with a testing 6-4 7-5 victory over French veteran Gael Monfils to advance to the quarters.

Alcaraz needed all his shot-making abilities to outmanoeuvre the 38-year-old Monfils, with the 21-year-old Spaniard making 22 winners and taking a break in each set to clinch the match in 87 minutes.

The French Open and Wimbledon champion will play Tomas Machac in the quarterfinals.

Four-time champion Novak Djokovic continued his bid for a 100th career title with a 6-3 6-2 win over 61st-ranked Roman Safiullin, but third-ranked Alexander Zverev suffered a shock 6-4 7-5 loss to resurgent Belgian David Goffin.

The 33-year-old Goffin will next face seventh seed Taylor Fritz for a place in the semis, after the American eased past Dane Holger Rune 6-1 6-2.