China Open which starts in Beijing on Thursday is an absolute gem in terms of the stellar field which will compete in the tournament of ATP 500 grade. Jannik Sinner is the top seed in the draw which consists of five top 10 and ten players from the top 20 of ATP rankings. Sinner will try to get the crown in the capital of China after last year's defeat suffered to Carlos Alcaraz in the final. The Italian has joked during the ceremony after the US Open final three weeks ago, that he meets Alcaraz more often than his own family due to competing in multiple finals against each other this year. That can most probably happen in the ATP 1000 event which starts in Shanghai next week, but this week the Spaniard plays in a parallel event in Tokyo. You can read the full Japan Open preview and draw analysis here. Let's get into the details of what we can expect from the action in Beijing.
Sinner leads the top half
Jannik Sinner is an obvious favorite of the top half, starting his Asian swing campaign from a match against Marin Cilic. The former Grand Slam champion should not be considered as a threat for the world number 2 at his current stage of career though. Cilic won just 2 matches played on hard courts this year, waiting for a single victory on that surface since February. Karen Khachanov is a potential Sinner's quarterfinal opponent. The 5th seed noted a successful summer with a run into the final in Toronto and being a quarterfinalist at Wimbledon. Despite that, his result in Canada was an outlier to an average season on hard courts with a record of 13-10 including the most recent upset loss to Kamil Majchrzak in a marathon match played in the second round of US Open. Although, Khachanov should pass into the quarterfinals without special trouble unless being in proper form.
The second quarter is featured by 3rd seed Alex De Minaur and 7th seed Jakub Mensik. The Aussie looks forward to continuing the consistent run of form which gave him the title in ATP 500 Washington followed by quarterfinals in Toronto and US Open. The world number 8 has recently recorded a sensational defeat to Raphael Colignon in Davis Cup Qualifiers which was a crucial part of the surprising elimination of Australia by the Belgian team - described in our Davis Cup Qualifiers review. Mensik approaches Asia after contributing to an impressive away victory of his national team over USA, where he scored the valuable point for Czechia winning over Frances Tiafoe. Although, the world number 17 struggles with consistency as he has not managed to win two consecutive matches on hard courts following his sensational victory in ATP 1000 Miami half a year ago.
The local fans will surely take care of the action in the top half, as it consists of all three Chinese wild card receivers - Bu Yunchaokete, Juncheng Shang and Zhizhen Zhang.
Zverev, big servers and exciting clashes in bottom half
This section of the draw is led by seeds who lived disappointments during ATP 250 events played in China during the recent week. Lorenzo Musetti was as close as possible to take the crown in Chengdu, but got upset by the qualifier Alejandro Tabilo despite having two match points in decisive parts of the match (review article). Rublev was also a top seed in the other tournament in Hangzhou but got eliminated in the second round by Valentin Royer who made a deep run into the final. That tournament got dominated by Alexander Bublik, who won it without losing a single service game on the road, recording an average of 17.5 aces per match. That's quite a huge turnover for Bublik who had a horrible start of the season with just 2 wins in 10 matches on ATP main tour level since January.
Another ace bombing player in this quarter is Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard. The Frenchman scores 12.7 aces per match on hard courts this season, however that does not translate too much into results with just 10 wins in 21 matches played. Mpetshi Perricard sets up an intriguing match against Musetti, while the winner of this clash can meet Bublik unless the Kazakh moves past one of the qualifiers in the first round.
Alexander Zverev leads the bottom half as the second seed. The German won just one tournament this year, prevailing on home soil in Munich in the clay event in April. The world number 3 waits for a title on hard courts since last year's Paris Masters. His summer campaign was quite decent with two semifinal runs in Toronto and Cincinnati, however his US Open campaign got ended quickly after a third round's loss to the eventual semifinalist Felix Auger-Aliassime. Zverev meets Lorenzo Sonego in the first round. The Italian had a promising start to the season, being a quarterfinalist in Australian Open and Marseille, but the rest of the season was abysmal for the world number 44 who has the negative record of 18-23 in 2025 on all surfaces.
Alejandro Davidovich Fokina is another player to watch in this section. The Spaniard was already a finalist on hard courts three times this season, getting defeated in title matches in Washington, Acapulco and Delray Beach. The world number 20 can set up an exciting clash with Daniil Medvedev in the second round. The Russian is the 8th seed, slowly sliding down in the ranking. His troubles look like they are not overcome, as he noted another upset loss to world number 196 Yibing Wu in the quarterfinal of ATP 250 in Hangzhou. It's the 5th defeat in the last 7 matches played by the former world number one who still looks forward to regaining his form from previous seasons.
Statistical heatmap and main draw
The heatmap displayed on base of the players performance from competition on hard courts in 2025 clearly shows that Jannik Sinner is an unreachable benchmark from all the other players in the field. Alexander Zverev and Alex De Minaur do also distinguish being a little step over the others. The field is a pack of top notch players, however many of those suffered the fluctuation of their form over the whole season and still try to overcome some low points of their form.
