The third day of action at the ATP China Open in Beijing is upon us with the preview dropping for Saturday's proceedings with Last 16 the order of the day as the schedule is now confirmed.
Four last sixteen ties to begin proceedings from around 06:30 CET as well as the start of the WTA tournament with early first round action and qualifying also concluding.
The first tie sees rising Italian, Matteo Arnaldi face Nicolas Jarry with the latter producing a stunning win over Stefanos Tsitsipas to reach this point. Then it is the turn of one of the matches of the day as Alex de Minaur who has been in superb form as of late will face Daniil Medvedev.
Medvedev himself played his first match since losing in the US Open final against Tommy Paul and swept aside the American with a fair bit of ease so comes back to Asia which was previously a happy hunting ground in good form seemingly.
Medvedev leads the head to head 5-2 with the Russian overcoming a disappointing loss earlier this year in Toronto by defeating him at the US Open. An always entertaining clash. De Minaur was one of two players to perform superbly that week in Toronto and the other was Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.
The Spaniard faces Alexander Zverev who won last week in Chengdu despite it not being a huge barometer as such as to where his form is at. He leads their head to head 3-1, but it will likely be the toughest test yet for the German in recent weeks as the Spaniard has the level to perform at his best when it matters most as was the case in Toronto in what has been his most consistent season to date.
Sandwiched in between sees Andrey Rublev face off against Ugo Humbert with a huge gap on the ATP side between that tie and the final Last 16 tie between Zverev and Davidovich Fokina.
This gap is due to the WTA Tournament also starting on Saturday with early first round action as Victoria Azarenka is in action against Magda Linette. Martina Trevisan, Marta Kostyuk, Donna Vekic and Anastasia Potapova are also all involved.
Implications aplenty with the Potapova-Gracheva match seeing the winner face Iga Swiatek. Azarenka could face Jennifer Brady in the same section. Trevisan could meet Qinwen Zheng or Elena Rybakina.
But also there is the matter of qualifying to conclude with Peyton Stearns and Mirra Andreeva looking to make it to the first round and that finishes on Saturday morning.
Andreeva is in a tough tie with Anna Kalinskaya, Elina Avanesyan faces Yulia Putintseva. While Stearns takes on Laura Pigossi, Eva Lys and Katie Boulter too are also in the last round.
Saturday, September 30, 2023 | ||||
Day 3 | ||||
Diamond Starts At 12:30 Pm | ||||
R16 | Matteo Arnaldi | VS | Nicolas Jarry | |
Followed By | ||||
R16 | Alex de Minaur | VS | Daniil Medvedev | |
Not Before 4:30 PM | ||||
Yue Yuan | VS | Elise Mertens | WTA | |
Not Before 7:30 PM | ||||
Victoria Azarenka | VS | Magda Linette | WTA | |
Not Before 9:00 Pm | ||||
R16 | Alexander Zverev | VS | Alejandro Davidovich Fokina | H2H |
Lotus Starts At 11:00 Am | ||||
Donna Vekic | VS | Anna Blinkova | WTA | |
Followed By | ||||
Marta Kostyuk | VS | Elisabetta Cocciaretto | WTA | |
Followed By | ||||
Sorana Cirstea | VS | Petra Martic | WTA | |
Followed By | ||||
R16 | Andrey Rublev | VS | Ugo Humbert |