Alex de Minaur's Chinese resurgence has been halted ruthlessly by the rampant, soon-to-be-crowned world No.1 Alexander Zverev at the Shanghai Masters.
Hoping to make another final just a week after he suffered an injury in the China Open final in Beijing, the resilient Australian No.1 succumbed 6-4 6-4 in the quarter-final of the Masters 1000 event on Thursday.
Behind his impregnable serve, Zverev, who's guaranteed to end the year as the top-ranked men's player after a season-ending injury to Jannik Sinner, enjoyed comfortably his most clinical match of the tournament after struggling in earlier contests with foot problems.
World No.9 de Minaur, one of the best returners in the game, managed to eke out five break points over two key games, one in either set, but was then thwarted by Zverev's delivery.
After being broken for 3-2 in the opening stanza when the German unleashed a series of monster forehands, de Minaur immediately hit back in the next game by carving out three break points, only for Zverev to pound down five unreturnable serves in a row.
Having wrapped up that set in 37 minutes, Zverev then found himself under pressure from the Sydneysider in the second stanza as de Minaur earned two break-point opportunities, sniffing the opportunity to move into a 4-2 lead.
Again, though, Zverev rescued the situation with fine serving and immediately broke a deflated "Demon'' in the subsequent game to effectively seal the deal, earning his ninth win over the Australian, this time with the help of 10 aces and 14 searing winners.
It continued de Minaur's depressing record against the German, having only ever beaten Zverev four times in team competition but never in an individual tournament.
The consolation for de Minaur, though, is that he ends another promising tournament by having improved his chances of reaching the end-of-season, eight-man ATP Finals for the third straight year as he's moved up to seventh in the live "race to Turin'' standings.
Effectively, that leaves him sixth overall, with Sinner's season already over because of his knee injury.