Tennis Briefing: Six Kings Slam Trailer, Naomi Osaka and Coco Gauff meet in Beijing

Welcome back to the Monday Tennis Briefing, true The Athletics will explain the stories behind the stories of the past week on the track.

This week the season continued to Tokyo and Beijing before arriving in Shanghai and Wuhan. Two stars looking for their best form will meet, matches are getting longer and Novak Djokovic is an ice villain?

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What can tennis learn from the Six Kings Slam trailer?

There are a lot of nonsensical things about the Six Kings Slam, a tennis event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It takes place immediately after a two-week Masters 1000; Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic are the top performers in an event with Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz; performance costs are over $1.5 million (1.1 million) for three days of tennis; Holger Rune is here.

Although, the trailer? It tears.

Alcaraz looks like a tennis player straight out of Dune; Rune is the rebellious Viking; and Daniil Medvedev rides a bear. Djokovic wakes up from a freezing sleep, looking like something out of Game of Thrones.

Longer and more compelling than most movie trailers, it does exactly what Saudi Arabia wants its buffet of global tennis stars to do: overshadow long-held concerns about its human rights record while helping the country take its place continues to expand in the corridors of power.

Following the spring announcement of the country's deal to host the WTA Finals from this year, Human Rights Watch said the torture and imprisonment of peaceful critics of the government continues. Courts impose decades in prison on Saudi women for tweets.

WTA president Steve Simon said The Athletics that the WTA certainly understands and respects that Saudi Arabia is something that provokes some very strong views, while former players, including Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, have publicly criticized working with a country with a history of repressive laws against women, which criminalizes homosexuality and freedom of expression, and that in 2018 the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a dissident journalist who had traveled to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey to obtain documents he needed for a marriage license, because The AthleticsMatt Futterman wrote in April.

Men's tennis and the ATP Tour would still do well to view this trailer, if not the event as a whole, from a different perspective. In the waning days of the Big Three era, men's tennis must consider the next sources of stardom and the gravitas this trailer achieves, just as it must consider its place in the sporting world.

The rivalry between Sinner, now playing under the possibility of a future two-year ban, and Alcaraz is vital, but two players alone cannot maintain men's tennis' place in the culture. This kind of cinematic visualization of rivalry, demonstration of a bigger prize and fantastic representation of the heights these players can reach is exactly how they can appeal to a wider audience and exactly why the Six Kings have taken this route.

James Hansen

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Will WTA matches get longer?

Two weeks ago, Laura Siegemund defeated Wang Xiyu in four hours and nine minutes at the Thailand Open. It was the longest WTA tour-level match since 2011.

That was surpassed on Thursday in Beijing when Sara Sorribes Tormo, known for her epic matches, defeated Gao Xinyu in four hours and fifteen minutes.

Because no WTA match has lasted longer than four hours in thirteen years, two came here within fourteen days.

The reality is that tennis matches are getting longer and longer. On the men's side, The Athletics revealed last year that there was an increase at Grand Slam level of around 25 percent between 1999 and 2023, and even in women's three-set matches there was a noticeable increase.

When women's matches last four hours and sets routinely last longer than an hour, it's rare to want more tennis at the end of a match and sometimes it can even be a matter of feeling as if less could have been done.

The recent US Open final between Aryna Sabalenka and Jessica Pegula was a good example of this. It was only two sets, but did anyone feel deprived after almost two hours of riveting tennis?

As equipment, technology and athleticism continue to improve at all levels of the ATP and WTA Tour, these long matches will only become more common.

Charlie Eccleshare

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How does shifting stardom remind tennis of the need for global appeal?

The move to East Asia for this part of the tennis calendar is a reminder of the sport's global appeal and the reach of its superstars.

Kei Nishikori, Japan's former world number 4, who has had such a hard time with injury recently, had an exciting run in Tokyo last week. His matches and training were packed and he was close to reaching the semi-finals at one point before losing painfully to Holger Rune. Even after his fall in the rankings, Nishikori definitely remains one of his country's biggest stars.

On the women's side, Australian Open finalist and Olympic gold medalist Zheng Qinwen is enjoying her homecoming at the China Open, and after a first-round win against Kamilla Rakhimova on Saturday, she said the atmosphere on the court was crazy.

She added: I never thought center court would be so packed. I know they're putting on my favorite music. They just did everything for me.

Due to the prominent presence of the home players in Beijing, it has been common in recent days for stars such as Carlos Alcaraz and Naomi Osaka to be played outside the main field. For a men's 500 event (the third largest tournament type, after the Grand Slams and Masters 1000s), this is a testament to the sport's depth and geographic spread.

Charlie Eccleshare

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A quiet, important fourth round in Beijing?

Tuesday will bring together two Grand Slam champions who have recently shaken up their coaching lineups as they look to find their best form.

It's just a last 16 match between Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka, but tomorrow's China Open meeting feels like something very important.

Both players really need to find a spark after difficult summers that failed to meet their own expectations and those of others.

Gauff parted ways with coach Brad Gilbert to freshen things up, while Osaka has replaced Wim Fissette with Patrick Mouratoglou.

Whoever wins will be confident going into the quarterfinals against Yuliia Starodubtseva or Anna Kalinskaya and a lot better about their prospects for the rest of the year. It is their first meeting since the summer of 2022, when Gauff triumphed 6-4, 6-4 in San Jose, California.

Charlie Eccleshare

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The meteoric rise of Jacob Fearnley

What a summer it has been for Brit Jacob Fearnley.

After graduating from Texas Christian University a few months ago, the 23-year-old Fearnley won his fourth Challenger title of the year (and second in a row) this weekend in Orleans, France.

Fearnley will become a top 100 player for the first time and if he can maintain his form he will automatically secure an entry into the Australian Open in January. On his Grand Slam debut in July, Fearnley reached the second round of Wimbledon, where he defeated seven-time champion Novak Djokovic.

The way Fearnley has hit the ground running after trading college tennis for the professional circuit is reminiscent of a similarly fast start by fellow Texas Christian alumnus Cameron Norrie at the same age six years ago.

Charlie Eccleshare

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Shot of the week

Trying to break Karolina Muchova is quite difficult when she can do something like that under pressure.

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Recommended reading:

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On the rise / along the line

Jacob Fearnley rises 28 places from number 126 to number 98 after his latest ATP Challenger win. It is his highest career ranking to date.
Naomi Osaka rises at least 15 places from No. 73 to No. 58 after her run in Beijing.
Bu Yunchaokete rises to a career-high of No. 83 from No. 96 and, like Osaka, could move higher as the week progresses.

Iga Swaatek remains world number 1 but loses 1,100 points after withdrawing from Beijing. Aryna Sabalenka can close the gap to just 284 points if she wins the event.
Adrian Mannarino drops nine places from No. 43 to No. 52 after losing 200 points from last year's victory in Astana, Kazakhstan.
Our Jabeur drops seven places from number 21 to number 28 as her long-term shoulder injury continues to damage her ranking.

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Coming soon

ATP

Beijing: China Open (500) with Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev, Andrey Rublev.
Shanghai: Shanghai Masters (1000) with Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic, Alexander Zverev.

UK: Sky Sports; USA: Tennis Channel Tennis TV

WTA

Beijing: China Open (1000) with Aryna Sabalenka, Zheng Qinwen, Coco Gauff, Jessica Pegula.

UK: Sky Sports; US: Tennis Channel

Tell us what you noticed this week in the comments below as the men's and women's tours continue.

(Top photo: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)