Fans Accuse Zverev of Taking Shelton and Hewitt's Practice Court in Shanghai

Update, October 12: Zverev has responded, and he is not having it. College Sports Network reports he dismissed the spectator claims on social media with laughing emojis, asking how anyone could make such a thing up. The tournament, Shelton and Hewitt have still not commented.

Spectators in Shanghai say the top seed kept a practice court that was no longer his, and sent two other players to a court nobody could watch properly. The accounts, posted by attendees at the Qizhong arena and reported by Sportskeeda and TennisUpToDate, accuse Alexander Zverev of arriving late to his own booking and running into Ben Shelton and Cruz Hewitt’s slot. The tournament has not confirmed the account, and Zverev now flatly denies it.

What do the spectator accounts actually say?

That a booking ran close to an hour late and the delay landed on the next pair. One attendee posting on RedNote said Zverev had Court 5 from 10:30, that his hitting partner waited on court, and that he arrived at about 11:50, TennisUpToDate reports. Shelton and Hewitt were due at 12:00 and arrived on time, the account says, but were moved to Court 10 so Zverev could finish. A second attendee, posting on X, said they had sat in the front row for over an hour waiting for that session and backed the account. Those are spectator claims, reported as such, in the same way Wu Yibing’s criticism of Zverev’s match behaviour was reported from his own press conference.

Why does a practice court matter enough to argue about?

Because practice access is part of the product at a Masters event. Fans cannot get close to a show court during a match, but they can stand metres from a practice session, and tournaments publish the practice schedule so supporters can plan a day around a favourite player. An attendee who queued for Shelton, the American No. 1 seed in his section of the draw and a player this desk wrote about on his birthday in Shanghai last week, and who ends up watching through a fence on a far court, has lost the thing they came for.

What has Zverev said in his own defence?

That the story is invented. College Sports Network reports Zverev took to social media to deny that he overstayed a practice slot or forced Shelton and Hewitt to relocate, answering the claim with laughing emojis and a short rhetorical question about how anyone could make it up. It is a denial of the whole account rather than an alternative version of it: no late arrival explained, no officials’ reschedule cited.

That leaves the story exactly where contested spectator stories usually end up. On one side, two attendees with matching, detailed accounts, reported with caution by three outlets. On the other, the player’s one-line dismissal. TennisTemple noted the original version rested on spectator testimony and had not been confirmed by any player or the organisers, and nothing since has changed that balance except that the accused has now spoken. The tournament, which controls the practice schedule and could settle the timings in a sentence, has still said nothing, and neither have Shelton or Hewitt.

Why has a scheduling row travelled this far?

Because it is the second Zverev flashpoint of his own tournament. Wu’s criticism after their second-round match was about gamesmanship during play. This one is about consideration off it, and the two together have fed a single debate about how the top seed carries himself in Shanghai. The crowd reaction has been blunt, Sportskeeda reports, with fans calling the alleged conduct disrespectful to other players’ time. Conduct rows have driven this tournament’s coverage all week, from Atmane’s racket throw in qualifying to the fallout from Hurkacz beating Djokovic for the first time in nine meetings, where the result was only half the story.

What would settle the question?

A word from anyone besides the two sides now dug in. Zverev has spoken, briefly, and denied it. The tournament still controls the practice schedule and can say whether the slots were moved by officials. Shelton and Hewitt can say whether they were asked to move or chose to. Until one of them speaks, the verified facts are narrow: two attendees gave matching accounts, three outlets reported them with the same caution, the player calls them fabricated, and Alcaraz’s tournament, by contrast, has been running on a team moustache pact rather than a dispute.

What happens next for Zverev in Shanghai?

The tennis moved first. Zverev beat Halys in three sets, 6-4, 6-7, 6-3, EssentiallySports reports, and plays Alexander Bublik in the last 16 on Tuesday, a pairing Bublik leads 3-1. He does so as the confirmed year-end world No. 1, a status settled by Zizou Bergs’ win over Carlos Alcaraz in the third round. The practice-court question is now narrower than it was: not whether Zverev will answer, because he has, but whether anyone with the schedule in their hands will ever confirm which version of that afternoon is true.