The Spaniards Carlos Alcaraz and Alejandro Davidovich won their matches on Wednesday in the Canadian Masters 1000, which is held in Toronto, and will meet in the round of 16 with the Pole Hubert Hurkacz and the Norwegian Casper Ruud, respectively.
Alcaraz found more difficulties than expected against the American Ben Shelton (41), who had eliminated the Spanish Bernabé Zapata on Tuesday. Shelton's powerful serve, which reached 230 kilometers per hour, caused problems for the Spaniard in his debut on the courts of Toronto's Sobeys Stadium.
Alcaraz settled the match in the tie-break of the second set, leaving the score at 6-3, 7-6(3) after one hour and 38 minutes of play. The Spaniard later recognized that Shelton's aggressiveness and power had prevented him from developing his game.
"The first rounds of each tournament are complicated but maybe today a little more against the type of player I've faced. But I'm very happy at the end to be able to get him out and have another chance in the next round to be a little better," he said.
For his part, Davidovich (37) solved his ballot against Alexander Zverev (16) more easily than expected thanks to the numerous errors by the German, especially with his serve. Davidovich called his win against Zverev one of the most important of his career, adding that he has capitalized on the German's mistakes with "very brave, very fast" play.
"I have put a lot of rhythm, a lot of intensity from the first moment and I think that has come to him. He has not served very well today, his serve percentage has been very low and I have taken advantage of it", he concluded.
Other surprises of the day were the victories of the French Gael Monfils (276), who easily got rid of the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas (4), and that of the American Marcos Girón (70) over the Danish Holger Rune (6), and that of the also American Mackenzie McDonald (59) against Russian Andrey Rublev (7).
In other matches of the day, the Russian Daniil Medvedev (3) beat Matteo Arnaldi (66), the Italian Jannik Sinner (8) beat his compatriot Matteo Berrettini (38), the American Taylor Fritz (9) beat the French Ugo Humbert ( 34) and the also American Tommy Paul (14) to the Argentine Francisco Cerundolo (22). Other players who advanced after Wednesday's matchday include Lorenzo Mussetti, Alex de Minaur, Andy Murray, Milos Raonic and Aleksandar Vukic.
