Tennis briefing: Six Kings Slam trailer, Naomi Osaka and Coco Gauff meet in Beijing

Welcome back to the Monday tennis briefing where The athlete will explain the stories behind the stories from the past week on the pitch.

This week the season continued to Tokyo and Beijing before arriving in Shanghai and Wuhan. Two stars striving for their best form meet, the games get longer and longer and… Novak Djokovic is an ice villain?

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What can tennis learn from the “Six Kings Slam” trailer?

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

But 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 an icy sleep like something out of Game of Thrones.

Longer and more weighty than most movie trailers, it does exactly what Saudi Arabia wants its buffet of global tennis stars to do: mask long-held concerns about its human rights record while further expanding its place in the corridors of power.

At the spring announcement of the country's agreement to host the WTA finals starting this year, Human Rights Watch said that “the torture and imprisonment of peaceful government critics continues… Courts hand down decades-long prison sentences to Saudi women over tweets.”

This is what WTA chairman Steve Simon said The athlete that the WTA “certainly understands and respects that Saudi Arabia is something that evokes some very strong views,” while former players including Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova publicly criticized “merging a country with a history of repressive laws against women, that criminalizes homosexuality.” Freedom of speech, and that in 2018, Jamal Khashoggi was murdered, a dissident journalist who had traveled to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, to obtain documents he needed for a marriage license,” such as The athletewrote Matt Futterman in April.

Men's tennis and the ATP Tour should look at this trailer, if not the entire event, from a different perspective. As the Big Three era comes to a close, men's tennis needs to consider its next sources of fame and prominence this trailer garners, as well as its place in sportswear.

The rivalry between Sinner – now playing with the possibility of a two-year ban – and Alcaraz is crucial, but two players alone cannot maintain men's tennis' place in the culture. This kind of cinematic visualization of rivalries, the demonstration of a bigger win, and the fantastic depiction of the heights these players can reach is exactly what appeals to a wider audience, and exactly the reason the Six Kings chose this path.

James Hansen

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Are WTA games getting longer and longer?

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

That was topped on Thursday in Beijing when Sara Sorribes Tormo, known for her epic matches, defeated Gao Xinyu in four hours and 15 minutes.

After no WTA match lasted longer than four hours in 13 years, two were added within two weeks.

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

When women's matches last four hours and sets regularly last longer than an hour, it's rare to find yourself wanting more tennis after a match is over, and sometimes you even feel like 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 inferior after almost two hours of riveting tennis?

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

Charlie Eccleshare

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How do changing celebrities 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 diversity of its superstars.

Kei Nishikori, the former Japanese world No. 4 who has had a difficult time of late due to injury, had an exciting run in Tokyo last week. His matches and training sessions were crowded and he was close to reaching the semi-finals before suffering an agonizing loss to Holger Rune. Even after his fall in the rankings, Nishikori 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 said the atmosphere on court was “insane” after a first-round win over Kamilla Rakhimova on Saturday.

She added: “I never thought Center Court would be so crowded. I know they play my favorite music. They just did everything for me.”

Due to the prominence of the home players in Beijing, it has been common in recent days for stars such as Carlos Alcaraz and Naomi Osaka to be scheduled away from the biggest pitch. For a men's 500-meter race (the third largest tournament type after the Grand Slams and Masters 1000), this is a testament to the depth and geographical spread of the sport.

Charlie Eccleshare

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A low-key, important fourth round in Beijing?

On Tuesday, two Grand Slam winners will meet who have recently changed their coaching setups in search of their best form.

It's only a round of 16 match between Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka, but tomorrow's China Open meeting feels like something quite significant.

Both players really need to find their spark after difficult summers in which they failed to live up to their own and others' expectations.

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

Whoever wins will be confident in the quarterfinals against Yuliia Starodubtseva or Anna Kalinskaya and will feel much 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 rapid rise of Jacob Fearnley

What a summer it was for Brit Jacob Fearnley.

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

Fearnley is ranked among the top 100 players for the first time and if he can maintain his form he will secure automatic entry into the Australian Open in January. In his Grand Slam debut in July, Fearnley reached the second round of Wimbledon, where he took a set from seven-time champion Novak Djokovic.

The way Fearnley was able to hit the ground running after transitioning from college tennis to professional tennis is reminiscent of the similarly quick start of 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 / Across the board

📈 Jacob Fearnley moves up 28 places from No. 126 to No. 98 after his last ATP Challenger win. It is his highest career placement to date.
📈 Naomi Osaka climbed at least 15 places from 73rd to 58th after its run in Beijing.
📈 Bu Yunchaokete rises from number 96 to number 83 and, like Osaka, could climb even further over the course of the week.

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

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📅 Comes

🎾 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; USA: Tennis Channel

Tell us what caught your eye this week in the comments below as the men's and women's tours continue.

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