Kei Nishikori will end his career in the city where he won twice. The ATP says the Japan Open, which begins Wednesday, is the final tournament of the 36-year-old’s career, and Monday’s draw sent him straight into second seed Frances Tiafoe.

Nishikori won the Tokyo title in 2012 and 2014, reached No. 4 in the PIF ATP Rankings in 2015 and won 12 tour-level titles, according to the ATP. He announced in April that he would retire at the end of the season. Tiafoe arrives at a career-high No. 8, reached on 14 September after his third major semi-final at the US Open. He knows the Tokyo final from the losing side: Taylor Fritz beat him for the title in 2022.

The defending champion. Carlos Alcaraz won Tokyo on his debut last year, beating Fritz in the final, and opens his defence against Alex Michelsen. The Spaniard, No. 3 in the rankings, was out with a right wrist injury from mid-April until the US Open, where he reached the quarter-finals before losing to eventual finalist Ben Shelton. Michelsen, 22, reached his first major quarter-final in New York and is a former Tokyo quarter-finalist. The ATP says the two have never played.

If Alcaraz wins, he meets Matteo Arnaldi or Japanese wild card Rei Sakamoto. His seeded quarter-final opponent is Tommy Paul, whom he beat at the US Open; Paul opens against Alejandro Tabilo. Alcaraz is chasing a third title of 2026 after the Australian Open and Doha.

Rune’s return. Holger Rune plays his first ATP Tour event since tearing his Achilles tendon in Stockholm last October. The former world No. 4 came back for Denmark in the Davis Cup earlier this month and reached the Tokyo semi-finals in 2024. He opens against Kyrian Jacquet, who enters as a special exempt after reaching the Hangzhou semi-finals, the ATP’s route into a main draw for a player whose deep run one week kept him out of the next event’s qualifying. The winner could meet sixth seed Casper Ruud in the second round.

Fritz’s section. Rune landed in the quarter of third seed Fritz, the 2022 champion, who opens against a qualifier and could play Lorenzo Musetti in the second round. Musetti starts against Wimbledon semi-finalist Arthur Fery. Fritz and Alcaraz are seeded to meet in the semi-finals, a rematch of last year’s final.

The bottom half. Tiafoe’s projected quarter-final opponent is eighth seed Valentin Vacherot, the Shanghai Masters champion last year, who opens against Alexander Blockx. Rafael Jodar, the 20-year-old Spaniard who reached the Washington final and the Montreal semi-finals in August, faces a qualifier and is Tiafoe’s seeded semi-final opponent. Fifth seed Brandon Nakashima stands in Jodar’s quarter.

What it means. Jodar is ninth in the ATP’s Live Race to Turin and first in the Next Gen race. The ATP says he is trying to become the third player, after Alcaraz and Stefanos Tsitsipas, to qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals the year after playing the Next Gen ATP Finals. Tokyo is an ATP 500, one of the last big points weeks before the Shanghai Masters begins on 7 October, and GTN’s Race to Turin tracker explains how the eight places are decided.

For the home crowd, the week belongs to Nishikori. Two younger Japanese players, Sakamoto and Sho Shimabukuro, are in the draw on wild cards. The Japan Open runs from 30 September to 6 October; GTN’s Japan Open guide covers the format, points and past champions.

Carlos Alcaraz does not mind a slow court. His complaint is the ball. Asked after Team Europe won the Laver Cup 13-5 at the O2 in London on Sunday about conditions that had looked slow all week, he started with a joke at his own expense.

“I mean, for me, I don’t mind slow courts (smiling). You know, especially with my serve, it’s not the biggest one,” he said, according to the ASAP Sports transcript. Then he made the point. “And now, you know, it’s getting slower, but I think it’s not about the courts. It is about the balls, I would say.”

“You know, we can see during a lot of tournaments how the balls’ reaction from the court is totally different. The ball becomes super big, and it’s totally different game when it’s new balls. We play two or three games with that balls, you have to adapt yourself the best you can.”

He said he had made a request, without naming who received it. “I don’t know where if they’re going to change it or not, but what I request is that they have to see the best ball possible for the courts are made, the tournaments we’re going to play. I think that’s a really important things to know.”

Not only Alcaraz. Jakub Mensik answered the same question first. He called London “one of the probably slowest surface that I have played on this year” among hard courts, and said of the balls, “I consider them that they were not that good.”

He said it a year ago. The complaint is not new for Alcaraz. After Taylor Fritz beat him 6-3, 6-2 at the 2025 Laver Cup in San Francisco, Alcaraz said: “I think these conditions, you know, it’s pretty slow. The balls are really big, so I had to be patient, I had to be solid.” He added, “It is really difficult when you are defending, turning to attack is really difficult because of the balls and the conditions that are really slow.” This year he reversed that result, saving two match points against Fritz on Saturday, the ATP reported.

What the rules already say. The pairing Alcaraz asked for is written into the Rules of Tennis. Any ball used in a tournament played under the Rules must be on the International Tennis Federation’s list of approved balls. The Rules provide three standard ball types: Type 1, the fast ball, is intended for slow courts; Type 2, the medium ball, for medium-slow, medium and medium-fast courts; and Type 3, the slow ball, for fast courts. Type 3 is physically larger, between 7.00 and 7.30 centimetres across against 6.54 to 6.86 for the other two. The ITF grades courts into five pace categories to support that matching; GTN’s court pace rating explainer sets out how the measurement works.

The wording matters. The ITF ruling says each type is “intended” for a court speed; it does not require an event to use a particular type. What the Rules do require is that organisers announce in advance how many balls are in play and the ball-change policy. When balls are changed after an agreed odd number of games, the first change comes two games early to account for the warm-up.

The test and the complaint. Alcaraz’s point about balls that grow after a few games is one the approval test only partly addresses. The ITF’s durability test uses laboratory equipment to simulate nine games of play, then measures the change. In the table of maximum permitted changes after that test, the ITF sets limits for mass, rebound and deformation, but lists no separate limit for how much the ball’s size may grow.

The lasting question. Players have pushed on two levers: how often balls are changed, which the ATP has looked at before, and which ball is used at all. Alcaraz’s request goes to the second, and the Rules already describe the answer he wants. Whether events act on it is another matter, and he said as much. “But, you know, who knows? What I can say is I’m trying to adapt myself and the game the best I can in the tournament that I go.” He starts his Japan Open title defense against Alex Michelsen this week.

Novak Djokovic has never lost a match at the China Open, and Monday’s draw gave him little room to ease back in. The six-time champion, playing the ATP 500 event for the first time since 2015, opens against Nuno Borges and landed in the same quarter as top seed Alexander Zverev.

Djokovic is 29-0 in Beijing, according to the ATP’s win-loss records, and is seeded sixth at 39. His only previous meeting with Borges came on the way to his 101st tour-level title in Athens, the ATP said. The winner plays Juan Manuel Cerundolo or Chinese wild card Bu Yunchaokete, and the draw then points to Zverev. Djokovic leads that head-to-head 9-5 and won their most recent meeting, at Roland Garros in 2025.

Zverev’s opener. Zverev plays Cameron Norrie, the British left-hander, in the first round. The ATP says the German has won 46 of his past 47 matches against left-handers. A three-time semi-finalist in Beijing, Zverev won the US Open this month for his second major and arrives from London, where his 7-6(3), 6-3 win over Learner Tien clinched the Laver Cup for Team Europe on Sunday. Shang Juncheng, one of the tournament’s four wild cards, or Sebastian Baez waits in the second round.

The rest of the top half. Third seed Daniil Medvedev beat Zverev in Beijing last year and was the runner-up here in 2023. He opens against a qualifier; the ATP noted he was into the Hangzhou semi-finals when the Beijing draw was made. Eighth seed Jakub Mensik, who won his Laver Cup doubles with Flavio Cobolli on Sunday, starts against Alexander Bublik. Jan-Lennard Struff meets Thiago Agustin Tirante, and Francisco Cerundolo faces a qualifier.

The bottom half. Second seed Felix Auger-Aliassime drew Karen Khachanov, who beat him in the second round of the US Open this month and went on to the semi-finals. Seventh seed Learner Tien, last year’s runner-up to Jannik Sinner, is in the draw on a wild card and opens against Hubert Hurkacz. Chinese wild card Zhang Zhizhen and Arthur Rinderknech each face a qualifier.

Fifth seed Alex de Minaur opens against Mariano Navone and could meet fourth seed Flavio Cobolli in the quarter-finals. Cobolli starts against Roman Safiullin, who is listed in the draw as a special exempt. Ignacio Buse plays Quentin Halys, and Tallon Griekspoor meets Andrey Rublev.

What is at stake. Sinner, the world No. 1, won Beijing last year and withdrew from this year’s event last week. The ATP said he will drop the 500 points from that title, which gives Zverev a chance to cut into Sinner’s lead in the race for year-end No. 1. Cobolli sits fifth in the Live Race to Turin and is chasing a first Nitto ATP Finals place, according to the ATP. Our guide to the Race to Turin explains how the eight places are decided.

Format and schedule. The singles draw has 32 players and eight seeds, so no one receives a bye. Qualifying runs Monday and Tuesday, and main-draw play begins Wednesday, September 30, with the final on October 6. Play starts at 11 a.m. local time on the first two days of the main draw, the ATP said. The four singles wild cards went to Shang, Bu, Zhang and Tien. The women’s WTA 1000 event runs alongside it at the National Tennis Center through October 11; our China Open guide covers both draws, prize money and how to watch.

First round. Top half: Zverev (1) v Norrie; Shang (WC) v Baez; J.M. Cerundolo v Bu (WC); Borges v Djokovic (6); Medvedev (3) v qualifier; Struff v Tirante; qualifier v F. Cerundolo; Bublik v Mensik (8). Bottom half: de Minaur (5) v Navone; Buse v Halys; Griekspoor v Rublev; Safiullin (SE) v Cobolli (4); Tien (7, WC) v Hurkacz; Zhang (WC) v qualifier; qualifier v Rinderknech; Khachanov v Auger-Aliassime (2).