Macau Tennis Masters Round-Up: Advantage Team Conchita as Alejandro Davidovich Fokina and Yibing Wu lead charge against Eala, Shang and Humbert

The Macau Tennis Masters started on Saturday 27 December and despite no Jack Draper or even Mirra Andreeva today at least, Team Conchita managed to star with a clean sweep against Team Li Na in the opening stanza of the exhibition tournament.

Jerry Shang began proceedings for Team Li Na as he faced off against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina on Team Conchita alongside Yibing Wu and Mirra Andreeva - of course the latter is coached by the Spanish icon.

But it was another Spaniard who led from the front as he sealed a 7-6, 7-5 win narrowly over the Chinese ace to begin proceedings in the early hours of Saturday morning to put them in the lead. Then came the interesting part though as Juncheng Shang and Alexandra Eala fought valiantly. Mirra Andreeva decided not to play last minute and is seemingly unwell.

But they still played the doubles tie in an early version of the Battle of the Sexes which is due to take place tomorrow. Eala and Shang were due to face Wu and Andreeva but instead Davidovich Fokina played alongside Wu as they do not have an alternate female player on site to play in the event.

This unlike Yibing Wu who took the spot left by Draper and Humbert for instance took Jakub Mensik's spot in the draw leaving it very much like for like. Yibing Wu for instance was always in an alternate spot anyway in case anyone withdrew but they didn't have such a plan for mid tournament pull outs. So Eala and Shang lost 7-5, 7-6 to the male duo in a mixed/men's doubles tie of sorts.

The hope though will be that Andreeva is well enough again to play Alexandra Eala tomorrow in one of the main ties that was picked out as one to watch this week in Macau. Eala swept Andreeva in Juniors at the US Open back in 2022. Albeit they have taken different paths as Eala took some time to find her footing on the main tour having a breakout 2025.

While Andreeva had a breakout year but also has had breakout years the past few since she was 16 and is now 18 so is a top 10 star and one of the best in the world compared to Eala who won that day 6-4, 6-0. Eala is now World No.53 while Andreeva is ninth after winning two titles and also reaching the Quarter-Finals at Wimbledon this year.

Yibing Wu had a great day overall. Famously he beat Nick Kyrgios in his last full on tilt at a return in Stuttgart and won an ATP title but he has since struggled with injury. But he saw off Ugo Humbert in the final match of the day in a superb tie-break win.

After winning the opening set 6-4, he lost the second 6-3. But he returned to seal the final foray 10-6 following the usual rules in which the tie-break decides if it's 1-1 at the end of play. So as a result Team Conchita lead going into tomorrow's action with Team Li Na having a mountain to climb.