The ATP Tour action smoothly transits into the Asian hard courts swing after the US Open and last week's Davis Cup qualifiers. China hosts two ATP 250 tournaments this week, being held in Chengdu and Hangzhou. Both the events are featured by some top tier players. Lorenzo Musetti is the top seed in Chengdu as the only top 10 player to compete this week, while Andrey Rublev, Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Bublik are about to kick-off their Asian campaign in Hangzhou. The main draw for both events are already released, so let's take a look of what we can expect from this week in Chinese competitions.
Rublev leads the top half in Hangzhou
The field in Hangzhou looked like really stacked one, although quite unbalanced, as the top half features one strong favorite. Andrey Rublev leads the pack as top seed, looking forward to extend his decent run of form presented during summer. The winner of ATP 500 in Doha in February played a successful campaign in North America. He followed the run into semis in Los Cabos with back-to-back quarterfinals in Toronto and Cincinnati and made into fourth round in Flushing Meadows. Rublev can look forward for a good campaign in Asia while being 11th in ATP Race, however his gap to 8th place securing the spot in ATP Finals is 660 points right now. The Russian seems to have quite a formidable path in top half of a draw in Hangzhou, as Learner Tien is the other seed in his quarter (7th). The potentially most dangerous Rublev's opponent can be found in the opposite side of a draw. Second quarter looks quite open with Corentin Moutet and Tomas Martin Etcheverry being the seeds there (4th and 5th). The French wins the most of return games on hard courts this year out of all the field, however is much vulnerable on serve, which is reflected on the analysis performance heatmap.
Packed bottom half
Bottom half looks much more stacked with a few strong names, however struggling with their form this season. Daniil Medvedev is the second seed leading this quarter, with a potential interesting clash of the Grand Slam champions on the horizon between him and Marin Cilic. This can happen in second round if Cilic defeats one of the qualifiers in opening round, coming there short after the unsucessful Davis Cup qualifiers on clay courts in Croatia. Medvedev playes a vastly disapppointing season with just 15 out of 26 matches won on hard courts including the current series of 3 defeats in a row from a position of clear pre-match favorite. This includes two recent defeats to Benjamin Bonzi in US Open and Adam Walton in Cincinnati, where Medevedev showed the mental struggles and frustrations related with his poor form.
Walton is one of Medevedev's potential opponents in a bottom quarter. The Australian sets up an interesting first round clash against Sebastian Korda who tries to finally get the proper match practice after struggling with injuries this season. Adrian Mannarino is another seed (6th) in this quarter alongside Medevedv. The French comes to China with an excellent run of form including 8 wins in 10 last matches which granted him with places in round of 16 of both Cincinnati Masters and US Open. Some fireworks clashes are almost guaranteed in this section of a draw.
Third seed Alexander Bublik leads the third quarter. The Kazakh plays the best season in his career with three titles won in Halle (grass), Gstaad and Kitzbuhel (clay) and advance into top 20 of ATP rankings. The crushing lose to Jannik Sinner in 4th round of US Open (1-6 1-6 1-6) stopped his series extraordinary of 20 wins in last 22 matches. Despite great run of form this year, Bublik plays much more efficiently on hard courts, having a record of just 10-12 on that surface in 2025. However, the run of 55 service games in a row without getting broken in Flushing Meadows show glimpses of a progress also on hard. Bublik's form is a question mark though, as he withdrew from the match against Soonwoo Kwon in Davis Cup Group I Playoffs during the weekend.
Matteo Berrettini relaunches his 2025 season naggled by the injuries, playing his first tournament since Wimbledon. The Italian played decent spring on hard courts, making into three quarterfinals of big events in Doha, Dubai and Miami, recording excellent serving stats which place him on top of TennisRatio Power Index analyzing the performance of players entering the event in Hangzhou. However, this must be taken with caution knowing the Italian's long break of competition and first outing on hard courts since March.
Berrettini will face a qualifier in the opening round and can play against one of the home representatives in second round as Bu Yunchaokete - the highest ranked Chinese player (74th in ATP list) faces the wild card Zhizhen Zhang - former world number 31 who comes back to play after half year of a break caused by the knee injury.
Hangzhou Performance Heatmap and Draw
Musetti, Atmane and Italian contigent feature the Chengdu draw
Lorenzo Musetti is the top star of Chengdu Open, featuring the draw as a top 10 and the only one top 20 player in the field. Musetti had quitea bad luck in a draw, setting up a potential early hit clash in second round against Terence Atmane. The French who performed one of the most sensational runs of the season, making into semifinals of Cincinnati as a qualifier with huge upsets made on Holger Rune and Taylor Fritz in quarters and semifinals leads the performance heatmap with the sample of 5 wins in 7 matches on hard courts in main tour this year. It's a narrow sample, and it's very interesting to see how the consistency looks like in Atmane's case, one month after his stunning performance in Cincinnati. Musetti proved the abilities to perform well on hard courts despite playing on this surface being his huge liability in compare to clay courts skills. He made into quarterfinals in US Open, playing decently in a role of favorite against lower ranked opponents in earlier rounds. The good tennis played in Chengdu can extend his confidence on the unliked surface and prove his versatility development.
The field in Chengdu is higlighted by the Italians, as Luciano Darderi and Lorenzo Sonego are 2th and 8th seeds in the bottom half. The field seems to be quite opened with just 3rd seed Tallon Griekspoor (11-10), Brandon Nakashima (15-12), Zizou Bergs (15-12) and Gael Monfils (14-8) having positive records of matches played on hard courts in 2025 main tour. The French veteran can set up an exciting clash against his fellowcountry serve bombing Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, who records 14.7 aces on average per match on hard in the recent ranking period.
Don't forget to follow the ATP action from China with the analysis and preview on TennisRatio during the week. Much of the exciting action takes place in women's tennis as well with WTA 500 in Seoul and Billie Jean King Cup Finals in Shenzhen.