By Mike McIntyre
The ATP Tour continues its swing in Asia with stops in both China and Japan this coming week. All of the top players in the game with the exception of Roger Federer will be making an appearance in either Beijing or Tokyo. Both events are at the 500 level which means bigger pay-days and bigger competition. The first Masters 1000 event of the fall is just a week away as well.
Defending champion Novak Djokovic takes the top seed in Beijing and makes his first appearance on the Tour since falling to Rafael Nadal in the U.S. Open final a month ago. Djokovic need not worry about facing the Spaniard this week but will still be pushed hard in order to advance to the finals.
Mao-Xin Gong, a Chinese wildcard, will be Djokovic’s first opponent. Given Gong’s world ranking of 353rd, I don’t think we have to worry about any potential upsets here. He gets the winner of the Mardy Fish vs. Janko Tipsarevic match in round two which will surely be a much bigger test of his abilities.
Tomas Berdych the fifth seed could be Djokovic’s quarter-final opponent, while both Nikolay Davydenko and Fernando Verdasco could await in the semis. It’s about time that Davydenko has a strong result and he has typically played well this time of year.
Gilles Simon and Sam Querrey are also lurking in the top half of a very strong draw and must face each other in the opening round.
David Ferrer and Sweden’s Robin Soderling are seeded to meet in the quarter-finals of the bottom section of the draw. Meanwhile Andy Murray will try to get back on track as the second seed and could end up meeting Russian Mikhail Youzhny in the final eight of his quarter.
Some great first round matches in Beijing include Alexandr Dolgopolov against Marcos Baghdatis, Youzhny vs. Ivan Ljubicic and the already mentioned Querrey vs. Simon.
Fans are going to be treated to some top-level tennis without a doubt this year in Beijing.
Nadal appears as the top seed in Tokyo and will try to improve upon his semi-final result this past week in Thailand where he was defeated by Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.Nadal opens against little-known Santiago Giraldo in the opening round. Next he could face either Florent Serra of France or a qualifier.
The draw here in Tokyo is not quite as strong as the one in Beijing, which should allow Nadal a clear path to the finals.
Names in his half of the draw that could cause some hurdles include Ernests Gulbis, Jurgen Melzer and Richard Gasquet.
In the bottom half, Andy Roddick is the second seed. Roddick will try to return to the form that helped him knock-off the likes of Djokovic and Soderling in Cincinnati earlier this summer, rather than his lackluster performances at the last two Grand Slams. Tatsuma Ito will be the American’s first opponent followed by the winner of either Jeremy Chardy or a qualifier. I foresee Chardy giving Roddick some trouble, especially if Andy has not been getting in a lot of court time lately.
Frenchman Gael Monfils, Jo-Wilfried Tsong and Michael Llodra have all been slotted into the bottom half of the draw and one of them should be advancing to the semi-finals. Perhaps Tsonga can rekindle some magic from a year ago where he won this very tournament. He is making his first tournament appearance since a quarter-final loss at Wimbledon.
This week’s tournaments boast a strong contingent of the world’s best competitors with only two players missing from the top twenty. Oddly enough both of those players, Federer and Stan Wawrinka, come from Switzerland.
The push for the final spots at the season ending Tour championships in London is about to kick-off. Time to see who has been preparing the best game plan since the U.S. Open ended.