Cameron Norrie's miserable run of form continued as the British number one lost in the second round of the Shanghai Masters to American world number 51 J.J. Wolf in straight sets.
In one of several second-round matches disrupted on Saturday due to bad weather, Wolf came up trumps in a nerve-wracking tie-breaker to prevail 6-3 5-7 7-6[4].
Including his US Open third-round loss to Matteo Arnaldi, Norrie had suffered defeat in five of his last six matches heading into the ATP 1000 event, most recently suffering an early China Open exit to Andrey Rublev.
The Briton's only previous main draw appearance at the Shanghai Masters in 2019 ended with a second-round loss to Daniil Medvedev, and he was blown away by the serving power of Wolf, who registered 13 aces and brought up a staggering 19 break points over the course of the match.
Both men squandered a handful of chances to break early on in the first set, before Wolf found a sixth gear to win four games on the trot, breaking Norrie twice to 15 to take the opener.
Norrie came out a man reborn in the second set as he raced into a 5-2 lead, and while Wolf miraculously managed to break his opponent twice to level at 5-5, the American lost his serve again in the 11th game to undo all of his hard work.
© Reuters
Norrie was up a break in the third set and beat away six opportunities for Wolf to get the contest back on serve before play was halted after the fifth game, but the hiatus initially had little effect on the British number one, who gave himself the chance to serve out the match with a love hold.
However, Wolf came up clutch with a crucial break in the 10th game, and Norrie failed to recover from a couple of early blips in the tie-breaker, as the American advanced to meet his opponent's US Open conqueror Arnaldi in round three.
In contrast, Dan Evans barely had to break a sweat to advance to the third round at the expense of world number 245 Mikhail Kukushkin, who retired with Evans leading 6-2 3-0.
In his inaugural main-draw appearance at the Shanghai Masters, Evans broke Kukushkin's serve in the third game of the first set and repeated the trick in the seventh game before clinching the opener with back-to-back aces.
Unforced errors were proving to be Kukushkin's downfall, as the 35-year-old immediately lost his serve twice in the second set before calling it a day with Evans 40-0 up in the fourth game.
Evans's reward is a third-round tie against world number two Carlos Alcaraz, who eliminated the 33-year-old from the US Open third round in four sets last month.
Ben Knapton
