The Week in Preview: Beijing, Tokyo

In tennis, it seems, the shorter you make the schedule, the more jam-packed it must become. In recent years, the WTA has laudably cut its season by nearly a month, so that it ends in late October. Unfortunately, the goal of shortening the schedule has run smack into another of the sport's goals: Growing the game in Asia. With fewer weeks available for the tour’s fall swing through that continent, where was the WTA going to fit a big new tournament in China, if one came along?

We found out last year when the $2.5 million event in Wuhan was wedged between the Premier event in Tokyo and the Premier Mandatory event in Beijing. That’s a lot of travel and tennis in a short amount of time, and this year the strain has led to more than a few early exits and withdrawals. Even before I began my Beijing preview below, the tournament had already lost its top two seeds, Simona Halep and Petra Kvitova.

For those of us who get to watch rather than play, though, more in-season tennis is not such a bad thing. There were a lot of great matches in Wuhan last week, and Beijing, even without Simona, and Petra (not to mention Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova), looks set to give us quite a few more. That includes the men’s draw—which, by the way, includes Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. Here’s a look at the week ahead in China and Japan. It's a big one for both tours.

Beijing
$4,749,040; Premier Mandatory
DecoTurf
Draw is here

Lara Arruabarrena should savor the moment. When will the Spanish woman, who is more famous for her name than her game, have another chance to see that name on the top line of a Premier Mandatory draw? She’s there because Halep, the tournament’s No. 1 seed, was forced to retire after feeling pain in her Achilles’ for the third straight week. That opens the top section for the three seeds who remain there, Roberta Vinci, Belinda Bencic, and Garbiñe Muguruza. They’ve all played well this fall; we’ll see if Muguruza can recover from the ankle injury that forced her to retire from the Wuhan final.

The same goes for the bottom half, now that Sara Errani has knocked out Kvitova, the No. 2 seed. That leaves a path to the semis for Andrea Petkovic, Timea Bacsinszky, and Carla Suarez Navarro. Sadly, Petkovic’s path was also cleared when Eugenie Bouchard was forced to retire to her after suffering from dizziness. According to Petkovic, Bouchard said she’s still feeling the effects from the concussion she suffered at the U.S. Open. Those effects gets worse during physical activity.

Match-ups to watch:

—Venus Williams, fresh off her Wuhan title, will play Ana Ivanovic in her opener.

—Agnieszka Radwanska will try to avenge her U.S. Open loss to Madison Keys in their third-rounder.

—If all goes according to plan, the game’s best youngsters, Bencic and Muguruza, will also face off in the third round.

Beijing
$2,700,510; 500 ranking points
DecoTurf
Draw is here

The “total financial commitment”—prize money plus guarantees—to the men in Beijing is $3,944,715; that's not bad for a 500-level event with just 32 players. No wonder two of them are Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.

For Djokovic, tradition and superstition may matter as much as money when it comes to this event. He’s played it five times and won it five times. If you’re wondering when the world No. 1 might have a letdown, history says it won’t be this week. Still, he’ll have competition; 10 of the ATP’s Top 20 are in Beijing.

Nadal, the No. 3 seed, starts against Chinese wild card Wu Di. Rafa is currently seventh in the race for the eight-man ATP World Tour Final in London next month.

The No. 2 seed, Tomas Berdych, who just won a title in Shenzhen, will open against Pablo Cuevas. Berdych is fifth in the race to London.

David Ferrer, who also won a title over the weekend, in Kuala Lumpur, will start against Thomaz Bellucci. Ferrer is currently eighth in the race.

Already out: Milos Raonic and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga

First-round match to watch: John Isner, who is 11th in the London race, vs. Dominic Thiem

Tokyo
$1,263,045; 500 ranking points
DecoTurf
Draw is here

Where’s the rest of the Top 20? Across the pond at this week’s other, less-lucrative 500 in Tokyo. Stan Wawrinka and Kei Nishikori are the top seeds, followed by Gilles Simon, Richard Gasquet, Kevin Anderson, and Marin Cilic.

Nishikori, as the home favorite and this year's maestro of the mid-level event, is probably the favorite to win the tournament. He’s already survived an early test, beating teen Borna Coric in three sets in his opener. Was that win another sign that Nishikori, who is famous for his record in deciding sets, is a clutch player? Or was it another sign that he tends to to lose concentration?

Also here: The Aussie bad boys, Nick Kyrgios and Bernard Tomic, are in town. Lock up your...I don't know, lock up somebody.

First-round match to watch: Cilic vs. Donald Young