Tennis This Week: Zheng in Beijing Semis, 9 Oct

As of the afternoon of Friday 9 October 2026, tennis this week is being written in two Chinese cities. In Beijing, three of the four women's quarter-finals are complete and home player Zheng Qinwen has become the third name in the semi-finals. In Shanghai the seeds played their opening matches, and the first hours of the day brought two early exits. We covered Thursday's Bartunkova–Muchova match in the 8 October edition of tennis this week; Nikola Bartunkova won it 6-3, 6-0 to reach the semi-finals. Today's piece starts with what has changed since.

Where the matches are played

The women are in Beijing, at the China Open. The WTA 1000 event is played on the outdoor hard courts of the National Tennis Center. The main draw began with 96 players, and the 32 seeds had a first-round bye. The quarter-finals were spread across 8 and 9 October; the semi-finals are on Saturday 10 October and the final on Sunday 11 October.

The men are in Shanghai. The Shanghai Masters, an ATP Masters 1000 event, began on 7 October at the Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena, again on outdoor hard courts, and runs until 18 October.

On a hard court the ball bounces predictably; a player who serves well has less trouble holding, and sets are often separated by a handful of points. The scores of the last two days bear that out: three sets in the two Beijing quarter-finals, and one set in each of the two favourites' matches in Shanghai, ended in a tie-break. We looked at how surfaces shape both the game and the picture in our piece on tennis court surfaces and colours.

Player of the day: Zheng Qinwen

Zheng Qinwen, in the main draw on a wild card, beat sixth seed Elina Svitolina 6-3, 7-6(6) on Friday to reach the semi-finals. She took the first set 6-3; the second went to a tie-break and finished 8-6.

In the round of 16 Zheng had needed three sets to get past Alina Charaeva, 6-1, 2-6, 6-4. Closing out the quarter-final in two can be seen as valuable, since it limits the time spent on court before the semi-final. The support of the home crowd may also be counted among the factors; even so, what settled the score was a few points at the end of the second set. A two-point margin in the tie-break shows how fine the line is when an even match is decided on a hard court.

Zheng's semi-final opponent will be the winner of this evening's match between Mertens and Swiatek.

Andreeva through on two tie-breaks

In Thursday's other quarter-final, fourth seed Mirra Andreeva beat 19th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova 7-6(4), 7-6(3). Andreeva was the first to move ahead in both sets. In the first she went from 2-0 up to 3-5 down; in the second she led 4-1 and served for the match at 5-3. Alexandrova closed the gap both times, but the 19-year-old won both tie-breaks.

Alexandrova had won the pair's two previous meetings, so this is Andreeva's first win against her. Not closing out the passages in which she led can be noted as an area still to develop. On the other hand, coming out on top in both tie-breaks let her finish the match without a third set.

Andreeva meets the 20-year-old Bartunkova in the semi-finals on Saturday.

Who is left in the draw

Of the three players already in the semi-finals, only Andreeva is among the top eight seeds. Bartunkova is seeded 26th, and Zheng is unseeded. The second and third seeds, Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff, went out in earlier rounds: Bartunkova beat Sabalenka 6-4, 6-3 in the third round, and Elise Mertens beat Gauff 6-3, 6-3 in the round of 16. A draw that has opened up this much gives the last two days of the tournament a different look from the usual pairings.

The seeds' first day in Shanghai

At the Shanghai Masters the seeds have a first-round bye and start in the second round. On Friday the top half of the draw was on court.

Top seed Alexander Zverev beat home wild card Wu Yibing 6-4, 7-6(4). Third seed Ben Shelton also came through, 6-3, 7-6(6) against Daniel Altmaier. Altmaier had knocked out Holger Rune 1-6, 7-6(5), 6-4 in the first round. Shelton's third-round opponent is Arthur Gea, who beat Ugo Humbert.

Both favourites took the second set in a tie-break. The scores were close, but going through without dropping a set can be considered a good start to a long tournament.

Two early exits

The day's upsets came from two different courts. Adrian Mannarino beat sixth seed Flavio Cobolli 6-1, 4-6, 6-3. Rei Sakamoto, a qualifier ranked 137th in the world, beat Andrey Rublev, one of the seeds, 6-4, 6-4.

Sakamoto's next opponent is ninth seed Alex de Minaur. De Minaur went through the second round without playing, as his opponent Alex Molcan was unable to take the court.

The seeds start the tournament against opponents who have already played a match and settled into the court and the conditions. That can be counted as one of the factors behind upsets in the first days; it is not an explanation on its own.

The second-round match between tenth seed Novak Djokovic and the 2023 champion Hubert Hurkacz was scheduled for the night session and had not finished when this piece was prepared.

Tennis this week: what comes next and what to watch

The last quarter-final in Beijing is played this evening: 13th seed Elise Mertens against eighth seed Iga Swiatek. Swiatek beat tenth seed Iva Jovic 6-1, 6-3 in the round of 16. The winner plays Zheng on Saturday.

There are two semi-finals in Beijing on Saturday: Andreeva against Bartunkova, and Zheng against the winner of this evening's match. The final is on Sunday.

In Shanghai the bottom half of the draw takes the stage on Saturday. Second seed Carlos Alcaraz plays Juan Manuel Cerundolo; fourth seed Felix Auger-Aliassime plays Camilo Ugo Carabelli; fifth seed Daniil Medvedev plays Jan-Lennard Struff.

Three things are worth watching. First, the tie-breaks: a good share of this week's sets have been settled there, and on days like these service games count for more. Second, how Bartunkova handles the opening games of her first WTA 1000 semi-final. Third, whether Sakamoto can hold the same level against De Minaur.

Next week the women's tour moves on to Wuhan for another WTA 1000 event (12–18 October).

Line, surface and wall

With its flat, single-colour surface and sharp white lines, a hard court shows the layout of a court in its plainest form. In a week of tie-breaks, it is also clear how decisive a few centimetres either side of those lines can be.

That geometry is the starting point for the tennis-themed wall art and display pieces made by Aurecort, based in Kadıköy, Istanbul: line, surface and the space between them. The Plexi Series brings together pieces whose glossy surface recalls the light of a night session; the standard size is 50 × 70 cm. For canvas, acrylic prints and signage outside the tennis collection, see our sister brand Aurecort Reklam.

Aurecort