Tennis This Week: Beijing and Shanghai, 8 October

Since late September the tennis calendar has been in Asia, and this week two big tournaments overlap: in Beijing the women have reached the quarter-finals, in Shanghai the men have played their first round. This look at tennis this week gathers the picture as of the afternoon of Thursday 8 October 2026: where the matches are, who is left, what the results say and what to watch before the weekend.

Tennis this week: two cities, one surface

The China Open in Beijing is played on outdoor hard courts at the National Tennis Center. The men's event finished on 6 October; the women's WTA 1000 tournament ends on 11 October. The Masters event in Shanghai began on 7 October at the Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena and runs to 18 October, an ATP 1000 tournament, again on outdoor hard courts. The women move to Wuhan next week: 12–18 October, Optics Valley International Tennis Center, hard courts once more.

What the three cities share is the surface. A hard court is an acrylic coating laid over concrete or asphalt; the ball bounces evenly and the pace sits somewhere between clay and grass. That makes the serve and the first shot after it decisive, while footwork matters most in long rallies. How surfaces shape both play and colour is covered in court surfaces and their colours.

Quarter-finals in Beijing: the name of the week is Nikola Bartunkova

In the first quarter-final of the day, 20-year-old Czech Nikola Bartunkova beat her compatriot and seventh seed Karolina Muchova 6-3, 6-0. The match lasted 67 minutes. Bartunkova won the first five games and the last seven, and reached a WTA 1000 semi-final for the first time in her career. She started the tournament as the 26th seed and had beaten Aryna Sabalenka in the third round.

The score reads differently with the previous round in mind. In the last 16 Muchova came through a match of nearly three hours against Naomi Osaka, 7-5, 1-6, 7-6, taking the deciding tie-break 9-7. Two days later she could not find the same level and finished with 37 unforced errors; the weight of that long match can be counted among the reasons. Bartunkova, for her part, opened the match early, broke serve in the second game and never let the gap close. A young player not letting go after getting ahead at a big tournament is a more lasting sign than the result itself.

In the semi-final Bartunkova awaits the winner of Mirra Andreeva and Ekaterina Alexandrova. The two have met twice before and Alexandrova won both. In the last 16 both went through by the same score, 6-2, 6-2: Andreeva against Daria Snigur, Alexandrova against fifth seed Linda Noskova.

The other two quarter-finals

Zheng Qinwen and sixth seed Elina Svitolina meet for the first time. Zheng beat Alina Charaeva 6-1, 2-6, 6-4 in the last 16, in a match of more than two hours; Svitolina beat Ann Li 6-2, 6-3. For the home player the crowd is both support and weight, and across the net is the experience of an opponent playing her 29th WTA 1000 quarter-final.

Elise Mertens against Iga Swiatek brings two different weeks together. Mertens beat third seed Coco Gauff 6-3, 6-3, her first win in their six meetings. Swiatek had a short match against Iva Jovic, 6-1, 6-3. On paper Swiatek is ahead; but Mertens beating a top seed in straight sets this week is reason enough not to see it as one-sided.

What the men took from Beijing and Tokyo

Last week's two finals form the background to Shanghai. In Beijing, Novak Djokovic won the first set against Alex de Minaur 7-6 in a tie-break; de Minaur retired early in the second set after a medical timeout. It was the 102nd title of the 39-year-old's career. In Tokyo, Carlos Alcaraz beat Jiri Lehecka 7-6, 6-4 for his 27th career title, becoming the first man to win Tokyo in consecutive years since Pete Sampras in 1993 and 1994.

First rounds in Shanghai: how the draw is taking shape

The biggest absence in Shanghai is world number one Jannik Sinner. The Italian withdrew because of a right knee injury and announced he would not play for the rest of the season. The top seed is Alexander Zverev, winner of Roland Garros and the US Open this year; Alcaraz and Ben Shelton follow. Djokovic is seeded 10th. The seeds had a first-round bye and take the court from the weekend. Last year's champion Valentin Vacherot is also in the draw.

The results that stand out from the first round: Stefanos Tsitsipas beat qualifier Kimmer Coppejans 6-3, 7-5 and plays 18th seed Luciano Darderi in the second round. Hubert Hurkacz beat James Duckworth 6-3, 7-6 and served 19 aces. Matteo Arnaldi beat Bernard Tomic 6-3, 6-1; Tomic was in a Masters main draw for the first time in seven years.

The second-round match: Hurkacz v Djokovic

Hurkacz's win put him straight across from Djokovic. The match-up is interesting on two counts. The first is the game itself: Hurkacz's strength is his serve, Djokovic's is returning it, and on a hard court the two are often separated by a handful of points. The second is the calendar: Djokovic played a final in Beijing on Tuesday and within days goes back on court in another city, on another court. At this point of the season results are often decided by rest as much as by form.

Sinner's absence opens the top of the draw. For Zverev it is a test of whether a player with two major titles this season can impose the same order at Masters level. Alcaraz returned from a long break caused by a wrist injury and took the trophy in Tokyo; Shanghai will show whether that return holds up to the rhythm of a two-week tournament.

What to watch before the weekend

In Beijing the remaining quarter-finals and the semi-finals will be played; the tournament ends on 11 October. If she wins her semi-final, Bartunkova will play a tour final for the first time. In Shanghai the second round begins and the seeds appear: Hurkacz v Djokovic and Tsitsipas v Darderi are the first matches to look for. Wuhan starts on 12 October, where Coco Gauff is the defending champion.

The colour of a hard court, and its counterpart on the wall

The Asian swing looks much the same from city to city: a surface in shades of blue or green, sharp white lines, a flat court shining under the lights in the evening sessions. Seen from above, the court becomes an order independent of the game: rectangles, service boxes and a single centre line. The compositions in Aurecort's Framed Art Series view the court from exactly that angle, from above; how the same order is built on canvas with colour and texture is covered in tennis wall art: colour, texture and composition.

For canvas and acrylic printing and signage outside the tennis collection, see the sister brand Aurecort Reklam.

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