Return Winners: the 2013 Shanghai final

Novak Djokovic and Juan Martin del Potro fought to a third-set tiebreak in the 2013 Shanghai Masters final.

Starting off his 2013 campaign with his third Australian Open title in a row, Novak Djokovic was unable to add to his Grand Slam title haul as he fell in the French Open semifinals to Rafael Nadal, and lost the Wimbledon and US Open finals to Andy Murray and Nadal, respectively.

After New York and the Davis Cup semifinals, Djokovic turned his attention to the Asian Swing on the ATP Tour calendar. He got back to his tournament-winning ways as he defended his title in Beijing, then rode that wave into the Shanghai Masters, where he was also trying to win for the second year in a row. There, Djokovic advanced to the final, with the loss of only one set, running his current winning streak to 11 matches in a row.

In the championship match, he’d face Juan Martin del Potro, who also entered the match in fine form, having just captured the Japan Open title. On his way to the final, Argentina’s top player stopped Nadal in the semifinals.

When Djokovic dropped that championship match at Wimbledon to Murray, he was coming off the longest semifinal match in tournament history as he barely scraped by del Potro in five sets—and five hours—in their most recent encounter. This Shanghai match was their fourth against each other over the year, and before Wimbledon, they had split the other two. In the first set, Djokovic had no problems as he romped through to take it 6-1.

The second set got off to an odd start: After holding in the first game, del Potro broke Djokovic’s serve as the world No. 2 seemingly struggled with his balance. Finding the range on his powerful groundstrokes, the Argentine would go on to take the second set 6-3 to level the match.

Facing each other in a final for the first time, both players raised the level of their game in the third set. Djokovic earned two match points on del Potro’s serve at 4-5, but the world No. 5 held on as the decider soon went to a tiebreak. There, Djokovic earned two mini-breaks early, and at 6-3, he struck a backhand winner down the line to clinch the championship.

2

For the second year in a row, Djokovic won four or more titles on a hard court in one season.

3

Djokovic defended a Masters 1000 title for the third time of his career after consecutive titles in Miami and Canada from 2011 to 2012.

2007

The last year a player from Argentina won a Masters 1000-level tournament was back in 2007, when David Nalbandian captured the last two of the season in Madrid and Paris.

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