Lorenzo Sonego is experiencing another inconsistent season in 2025, following the patterns of 2023 and 2024. Despite this, he has maintained a respectable top-50 ranking for most of the year, largely thanks to strong performances in the Slams, including a quarterfinal at the Australian Open and a round of 16 appearance at Wimbledon. He has won only 18 matches in the past nine months, seven of which came during those two Slam campaigns.
He has not achieved anything notable at ATP events this year and has failed to win consecutive matches at this level, preventing him from fully capitalizing on his surprise Slam runs and climbing further in the rankings. Sonego has lost four of his last five matches on the main tour, including a 1-2 record so far in the Asian swing.
Sonego’s performance at the Masters level in 2025 has been relatively solid, better than what he has achieved in most ATP 250 and 500 events. He participated in seven Masters tournaments earlier this year and cleared the opening-round hurdle in four of them.
Yannick Hanfmann had a difficult first half of the year but has somewhat regained his form in recent months, achieving a mix of solid results at both Challenger and tour-level events. However, this improvement has not been enough to fully repair the ranking damage from earlier in the year, as he still sits outside the top 150.
The German has also started the Asian swing positively, reaching the semifinals at the Jingshan Challenger last week and following it up with a successful qualification at the Shanghai Masters, where he defeated Shintaro Mochizuki and Jason Kubler without dropping a set. These two wins earn Hanfmann his first main-draw appearance at a Masters event in 2025.
Hanfmann has an impressive first-round record at Masters level, having won seven of his ten career matches at this stage. He also won his only previous first-round match at the Shanghai Masters, defeating James Duckworth in the 2023 edition.
Head-to-head: Lorenzo Sonego leads 4-1. Sonego has gained a reputation for being unpredictable and unreliable in recent times, and with Yannick Hanfmann building momentum in Asia, an upset is certainly possible. Sonego will need to be at his best to avoid another disappointing result. That said, the contest still largely rests in the Italian’s hands, and his performance on the day will be the deciding factor.