Milos Raonic moved to within a match of his best showing at the Shanghai Rolex Masters on Wednesday.
The fifth seed dominated his second-round contest against Italian Paolo Lorenzi, advancing 6-2, 6-4 in 65 minutes. The Canadian won 84 per cent of his service points (36/43), converted all three break points and never faced one on his serve. He also earned the customary “free points”, nailing 14 aces.
"I have to be happy with the way I played. It was very important for me to be efficient out on court today," he said.
Raonic, who withdrew from his Beijing semi-final match last week because of a right-ankle injury, said he's still feeling some pain but has learned to play with the slight discomfort. "Just really trying to manage it so it doesn't progress, doesn't get worse," he said.
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On Sunday, he became the fourth player to qualify for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals. In Shanghai, he's reached the third round, matching his best showing in the Chinese city (2013, 2015). He'll attempt to break through to the quarter-finals at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament when he faces Jack Sock, No. 25 in the Emirates ATP Rankings.
The American outlasted three-time Shanghai semi-finalist Feliciano Lopez 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 in one hour and 54 minutes to gain his first FedEx ATP Head2Head win against the Spaniard. Sock had fallen during their only prior match-up, a 2013 quarter-final contest at Memphis. The 24 year old took care of his side of the net during the second-round affair, winning almost 80 per cent of his first-serve points.
Sock trails Raonic in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series 1-8. Raonic has taken their past eight contests, dating back to a three-set win at Cincinnati in 2013. "It's going to be a good match again. We've always played very close matches," Raonic said.
Three of their past four matches have ended in a third-set tie-break.
Gilles Simon, 2014 Shanghai finalist, will meet Stan Wawrinka in the third round. Simon ended Chinese Di Wu's best run at a Masters 1000 tournament, eliminating the Shanghai resident 6-2, 6-2 in 69 minutes. Wu had prevailed against 16th seed Pablo Cuevas in the first round for the biggest victory of his career. “At the end of the game, he's very smart. He knows my forehand is my weakness, and he kept hitting to my forehand,” Wu said.
Wawrinka leads his FedEx ATP Head2Head series against Simon 4-2, but the Frenchman won the last time they played on hard courts, Shanghai in 2014.