The Shanghai Masters has once again thrown up a series of surprises during the early rounds of the 2027 tournament.

Last year’s event was one of the stories of the season, as Valentin Vacherot defeated the likes of Holger Rune, Novak Djokovic, and Alexander Bublik to win the tournament.

This year, an incredible number of seeds have fallen by the wayside before the fourth round of the tournament.

That includes the likes of Carlos Alcaraz and Taylor Fritz, who lost to Zizou Bergs and Stefanos Tsitsipas, respectively, to crash out at the third round phase.

But are the balls partly to blame at this year’s event?

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Speaking prior to his defeat to Tsitsipas, Fritz issued a major complaint about the quality of the balls at the tournament.

Fritz is often disparaging about the balls on the ATP Tour calendar and the Shanghai Masters is no different.

“These balls are very fast when they’re new, and then they wear down at an insane rate,” said the American. “Once they’re worn out, it’s a nightmare trying to close out a point.

“Once they’re worn out, my God, it’s torture trying to close out a point.”

Carlos Alcaraz, meanwhile, waited until he was on court to complain about the quality of the balls, during his defeat to Bergs in the third round.

“”How can one ball bounce and another slide right over me?” Alcaraz could be heard saying in between points. “I can’t play like this, I don’t understand it. I can’t play by intuition.”

Thankfully for the top seeds, the Shanghai Masters have sped the courts up for this year’s event, but does that really help if the quality of the balls are wearing so quickly?

While top players should not be given an advantage at tournaments, they are often the ones who are playing the sport on the frontfoot.

It could be argued that they are actually being put at a disadvantage due to the quality of the balls, which is bad news for the Shanghai Masters.

After two difficult years, the tournament could become another of the Masters tournaments that players are more keen to miss.

Last year was riddled with issues of a slow court, as well as intense heats, while this year the courts appear too fast and the balls are wearing too quickly.

While players are very rarely entirely happy about the conditions, it appears much worse at this year’s event and the number of seeds that have dropped out of the tournament is a testament to that.