Alejandro Davidovich Fokina has won his first ATP Masters 1000 title, rallying from a set and a break down to beat countryman Rafael Jodar 1-6, 7-6(5), 6-4 in Sunday’s Rolex Shanghai Masters final.
The 27-year-old Spaniard completed a week of escapes inside Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena, the ATP Tour reported. He trailed 1-6, 2-3 before forcing a third set and closing out a two-hour, 28-minute win for the biggest title of his career.
“I don’t have any words right now,” Davidovich Fokina said. “I have a blank mind. I don’t know what to say and I don’t know how I feel. Just a huge relief. After the first set I had to keep trying, keep pushing, like every match in the tournament. In the tie-break, I believed in myself again and tried to play the ball. He was playing huge tennis.”
“In the third set, maybe I had a bit more fitness physically. He’s an amazing player and it was very tough to play against him today.”
Third title of 2026
It was Davidovich Fokina’s third ATP Tour trophy and the biggest of the three, after titles in Mallorca and Chengdu earlier this year. He had lost his first five tour-level finals, including his only previous Masters 1000 championship match in Monte-Carlo in 2022, before winning his past three, the ATP said.
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His Chengdu win in late September marked his return after missing two months with a back injury. With Shanghai added, he is on a 10-match winning streak on Chinese soil. En route to the final he saved a match point against Frances Tiafoe and came from a set down to beat Hubert Hurkacz and top seed Alexander Zverev.
Rankings and Race to Turin
Davidovich Fokina will rise 13 spots to a career-high No. 13 in the PIF ATP Rankings on Monday. Jodar, who would have sealed a Top-10 debut with a win, rises two spots to a joint career-high No. 11 and remains ninth in the PIF ATP Live Race To Turin.
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That keeps the 20-year-old inside the Nitto ATP Finals qualifying cut, still ahead of 10th-placed Australian Alex de Minaur, whose Shanghai campaign ended in a quarter-final loss to Zverev.
How the final unfolded
Jodar broke twice in the opening set and claimed it without facing a break point. Davidovich Fokina broke back immediately after falling 2-3 down in the second, then held his nerve through a tie-break — as he had against Zverev in the semi-finals — to force a decider. The pair exchanged breaks early in the third before Davidovich Fokina broke again in the fifth game and stayed in control to the finish.
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