of the Race. Fyrstenberg and Matkowski were then beaten in straight sets, and denied a guaranteed spot in Shanghai. Their qualification as alternates marked their second appearance at the Masters Cup after a previous run in 2006, where they lost all of their round robin matches. Alternates Although the ATP Rulebook states that the two players immediately ranked after the last qualifier at the Masters Cup should be selected as singles alternates, and be present at the event's location, only two players ranked in the Top 35 of the ATP Race, after Gilles Simon, accepted the invitation to come to Shanghai : 26th-ranked Radek Štěpánek of the Czech Republic, and 35th-ranked Nicolas Kiefer of Germany. Among the twenty-four players who declined to come – because they needed to prepare for the Davis Cup final, for reasons of injury, or to preserve themselves for the next season – were James Blake, David Nalbandian, 2007 Tennis Masters Cup finalist David Ferrer, Stanislas Wawrinka, 2007 qualifier Fernando González, Fernando Verdasco, Gaël Monfils, Robin Söderling, Igor Andreev, Nicolás Almagro, Tomáš Berdych, Tommy Robredo, Marin Čilić, Mardy Fish, 2007 qualifier Richard Gasquet, Ivo Karlović, Philipp Kohlschreiber, Dmitry Tursunov, Marat Safin, Feliciano López, Paul-Henri Mathieu, Mikhail Youzhny, Andreas Seppi, Rainer Schüttler and Mario Ančić. Czech Radek Štěpánek, who started the year as No. 30 and ranked as high as No. 12 on July 7, had his best Grand Slam performance at the French Open, where he reached the fourth round, losing to David Ferrer in five sets on the score of 4–6, 6–2, 1–6, 6–3, 6–3. Štěpánek reached one final in the season in San Jose (lost to Roddick), and reached the semifinals at four events, in Sydney (lost to Guccione), Memphis (lost to Söderling), Rome (retired due to illness against Djokovic), and Metz (lost to Tursunov). Former World No. 4 Nicolas Kiefer, who qualified once for the year-end event at the 1999 ATP Tour World Championships, where he reached the semifinals (lost to Sampras), did not get past the third round at a Grand Slam event in 2008 but reached his first tournament final since Saint Petersburg in 2005, his first career ATP Masters Series final – and his only final of the season – at the Toronto Masters (lost to Nadal). His other best results included a semifinal in Halle (lost to Federer), and a quarterfinal at the Hamburg Masters (lost to Seppi). The