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Nishikori Draws Second Seed Tiafoe in the Last Tournament of His Career

Steven Hodel
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Nishikori Draws Second Seed Tiafoe in the Last Tournament of His Career

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.

Alcaraz Says Tennis Is Getting Slower Because of the Balls, Not the Courts

Steven Hodel
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Alcaraz Says Tennis Is Getting Slower Because of the Balls, Not the Courts

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.

Special Exempts Explained — How a Winning Week Skips Next Week’s Qualifying

Steven Hodel
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Special Exempts Explained — How a Winning Week Skips Next Week’s Qualifying

The China Open draw published on Monday lists Roman Safiullin beside fourth seed Flavio Cobolli with two letters after his name: SE. Across the calendar, the WTA’s Ningbo Open reserves one special exempt place in its 28-player field. The designation solves a scheduling problem the tours create every week. A player who keeps winning at one tournament cannot be in another city for the next tournament’s qualifying.

What a special exempt is

Under the ATP Rulebook, a player can receive a special exempt into the singles main draw of the following week’s tournament when two conditions are met. He is still competing, in another qualified event, on the date that tournament’s qualifying begins. And his ranking at the entry deadline would not have made him a direct acceptance had he entered. A player still on court at 9 p.m. local time at the qualifying site is eligible only if he wins that match.

The second condition is the one most often missed. A special exempt replaces qualifying; it is not a bonus for a good week. Daniil Medvedev was into the Hangzhou semifinals when the Beijing draw was made, according to the ATP, but his ranking put him straight into the main draw as the third seed, so the rule never applied to him.

Which tournaments count

The rulebook limits which “qualified events” can feed a special exempt, by the level of the tournament the player wants to enter:

  • Into a Masters 1000: another Masters 1000, an ATP 500 or a Grand Slam.
  • Into an ATP 500: another ATP 500, a Masters 1000, a Grand Slam, or an ATP 250 in the same region as the 500 event.
  • Into an ATP 250: any ATP 250, ATP 500, Masters 1000 or Grand Slam.
  • Into a Challenger: an ATP Tour or Challenger event in the same geographic region, unless the region has no Challenger the following week, in which case any Challenger that week qualifies.

How many places there are

Masters 1000 and ATP 500 tournaments have one special exempt place. ATP 250 and Challenger events have two. When more players are eligible than there are places, they are selected by position on the most recent ATP rankings or by protected ranking, with two limits. A player who is already a direct acceptance on his protected ranking is not eligible, and a player who would have been a direct acceptance had he entered on his protected ranking cannot use it to set his place on the special exempt list.

What happens to an unused place

At ATP Tour events, a special exempt place that is not needed before qualifying begins goes to the next player on the original acceptance list. The rulebook notes that this can pull a player out of the qualifying draw before the first ball is struck, with an alternate taking his qualifying spot. It is one reason entry lists keep moving until the weekend before an event.

The Q/SE line in a draw

Main draws are often made before the candidate has played his Friday match. In that case the special exempt places are drawn like qualifier places and the lines are marked “Q/SE”. Once the result is known, either the special exempt player or, if he lost, the next direct acceptance is drawn at random into one of those lines.

One hour to decide

A player has until one hour after the match that makes him eligible to tell the ATP supervisor or player relations staff that he wants the place. Once he declares, he is committed. Turning it down afterwards brings the withdrawal or late-withdrawal penalties, and a player who accepts and fails to appear is treated as an entered player and penalised accordingly.

The timing cases

The rulebook’s case decisions draw the lines tightly. A player who wins a Thursday quarterfinal at an event with a Saturday final is not eligible, because he must be scheduled to play on the day qualifying begins. A match that runs past midnight on the eve of qualifying does not count as competing on qualifying day; the rule means starting or resuming a match as part of that day’s scheduled programme. A player without a singles ranking or protected ranking cannot receive a special exempt at all.

There is also a late-night exit. A player who is still on court at 9 p.m. the night before qualifying and then loses is eligible neither for the special exempt nor for qualifying sign-in. The tournament can still hand him a wild card if it knows the result before the qualifying draw and no special scheduling is needed.

Special exempt, lucky loser, qualifier

The three routes are easy to confuse. A qualifier earns a main-draw place by winning the qualifying competition. A lucky loser lost in qualifying and fills a vacancy. A special exempt never plays qualifying, because he was still winning somewhere else when it began.

The WTA version

The WTA uses special exempts too. Its rulebook lists special exempt among the ways a player can be accepted into a tournament, and the WTA’s published field for the 2026 Ningbo Open includes one special exempt place alongside six qualifiers and four wild cards. The WTA’s detailed eligibility criteria are set out in its own rulebook and are not covered here; the rules above are the ATP’s.

Ningbo Open Guide — Dates, Draw Format, Points and Past Champions

Steven Hodel
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Ningbo Open Guide — Dates, Draw Format, Points and Past Champions

The Ningbo Open is a WTA 500 tournament played on outdoor hard courts in Ningbo, China, and one of the last stops of the Asian swing. The 2026 edition runs October 19 to 25 at the Ningbo Tennis Center.

Last year the final settled more than a title. Elena Rybakina lost the opening set to Ekaterina Alexandrova, then won nine games in a row across the second and third sets to take the trophy 3-6, 6-0, 6-2, according to the WTA. The run helped her into the WTA Finals, which she went on to win. That is the tournament’s place on the calendar: late enough that every result moves the year-end race.

Dates and venue

First-round singles matches begin on Monday, October 19, and the tournament runs through Sunday, October 25, when both the singles and doubles finals are played, according to the WTA. Matches are at the Ningbo Tennis Center on outdoor hard courts.

Draw format

The singles draw has 28 players and the doubles draw 16 teams. The singles field is made up of direct entrants plus six qualifiers, four wild cards and one special exempt spot, the WTA said. The top four seeds receive byes into the second round, so they need four match wins for the title while everyone else needs five. Qualifying works as at other tour events; our guide to tour-level qualifying explains the path.

Points and prize money

The singles champion earns 500 ranking points and $185,500, according to the WTA, which lists the tournament’s total financial commitment at $1,206,446. For how the 500 level sits between the WTA 1000 events and the 250s, see our WTA 500 guide.

History

The Ningbo Open was founded in 2010. It was a WTA 125 event in 2013 and 2014, returned in 2023 as a WTA 250 after a nine-year gap, and was upgraded to WTA 500 status in 2024, according to the WTA.

Past champions

Tour-level era, singles finals:

Each of the three finals has a story attached. Jabeur took a last-minute wild card in 2023 after a third-round loss in Guadalajara and won the first hard-court title of her career, winning all six deuce games in a 78-minute final, the WTA reported. Kasatkina won the first edition at 500 level as the fifth seed, beating Andreeva in three sets. Rybakina, the third seed in 2025, beat fourth seed Alexandrova for the 10th title of her career.

Ningbo and the WTA Finals race

The WTA describes Ningbo as the second-to-last 500 event on its calendar, which is why it tends to carry weight in the Race to the WTA Finals. With few events left in the season, a deep week here can move a player on the edge of the eight-woman singles field, as Rybakina’s did in 2025. Our guide to the ATP and WTA Finals covers the year-end events themselves.

How to watch

Television and streaming rights vary by country. The WTA’s where-to-watch page lists the rights holders for each region. Other stops on the swing are covered in our China Open guide and Wuhan Open guide.

Season Snapshot — as of 28 September 2026

Entry list. Defending champion Rybakina leads the field, joined by fellow Top 10 players Jessica Pegula, Elina Svitolina, Iga Swiatek and Marta Kostyuk, according to the entry list the WTA published on 24 September. Top 20 players Belinda Bencic, Iva Jovic, Diana Shnaider, Sorana Cirstea, Alexandra Eala, Elise Mertens and Jasmine Paolini are also entered, with Anna Kalinskaya, Maja Chwalinska, Marie Bouzkova, Ekaterina Alexandrova and Sara Bejlek completing the direct entrants. The first five alternates were Diane Parry, Leylah Fernandez, Jelena Ostapenko, Cristina Bucsa and Wang Xinyu. Entry lists change with withdrawals.

Race to the WTA Finals. On the WTA’s 24 September standings, Rybakina had already qualified, while Svitolina, Karolina Muchova and Linda Noskova held sixth, seventh and eighth. Swiatek was ninth and Kostyuk 10th. The WTA noted that Noskova, as a Grand Slam champion, would qualify unless she fell below 20th.

Rankings. Rybakina arrives in the Asian swing as world No. 1, according to the WTA.

This snapshot is dated and will change. The career record above does not.

Djokovic Is 29-0 in Beijing and the Draw Puts Zverev in His Quarter

Steven Hodel
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Djokovic Is 29-0 in Beijing and the Draw Puts Zverev in His Quarter

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).

ITIA Provisional Suspensions Explained — How Tennis Bars a Player Before Any Hearing

Steven Hodel
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ITIA Provisional Suspensions Explained — How Tennis Bars a Player Before Any Hearing

On Aug. 28, 2026, the International Tennis Integrity Agency said Croatian coach Marino Jakic had been provisionally suspended since June 24, pending a full investigation of potential breaches of tennis’ anti-corruption rules in 2023. Jakic had appealed. On Aug. 18, an independent hearing officer upheld the suspension. No case against him had been decided, and he was still barred from the sport.

That is what a provisional suspension does. It removes a player, coach or official from tennis while a case is still open. This explainer sets out how the ITIA uses it under the Tennis Anti-Corruption Program (TACP), what it bans, how it can be challenged and what happens to the time served, using the agency’s own published decisions.

What a provisional suspension is

The ITIA describes provisional suspensions as imposed pending the full consideration of TACP charges. It is an interim measure, not a finding. The underlying case continues and ends either in a sanction, agreed or imposed after a hearing, or in no sanction at all.

The two grounds the ITIA cites most

Section F.3.b.i.1: failing to comply with a Demand. Refusing an investigator’s Demand is a ground on its own, whatever the investigation eventually finds. Russian player Mark Kaufman was provisionally suspended under this section from Dec. 24, 2025. When the ITIA later announced his sanction, it said the underlying offence was failing to co-operate with an investigation, including refusing a request to examine his phone. Azerbaijan Davis Cup captain Yalchin Manafli was provisionally suspended from June 11, 2026, for the same kind of refusal, the ITIA said.

Section F.3.b.i.4: a likely serious offense. This ground requires the ITIA to show a likelihood that the person has committed a corruption offence, and that tennis’ integrity would be undermined without a suspension, with the harm of not suspending outweighing the hardship to the person. In its January 2026 releases the agency quoted the threshold as an offence “above Category C2 of the Sanctioning Guidelines”. Its releases from 2023 used the older term “Major Offense” for the same section.

Who can be suspended

Anyone covered by the program, not only players. On Jan. 20, 2026, the ITIA announced five provisional suspensions under F.3.b.i.4 in one release: players Alana Tuayeva of Russia and Nikol Palecek of Serbia, and three national-level officials, Marko Ristic of Serbia and Zsolt Bagosi and Tamas Tarnai of Hungary. Jakic is a coach. Manafli, besides captaining his country’s Davis Cup team, has worked as a tournament director at World Tennis Tour events in Azerbaijan, according to the ITIA.

What it bans

The ban is total. In its August 2026 wording, the ITIA says suspended and provisionally suspended individuals may not play in, coach at or attend any event organised or sanctioned by World Tennis, the WTA, the ATP, the Grand Slams or any national association. Earlier releases named the agency’s members instead: the ATP, ITF, WTA, Tennis Australia, the French Tennis Federation, Wimbledon and the USTA. The change reflects the ITF’s rebrand as World Tennis, not a narrower ban.

How to challenge it

The suspended person can appeal the imposition of the provisional suspension to an independent Anti-Corruption Hearing Officer (AHO). The ITIA’s 2026 releases show how those appeals have gone:

  • Mila Masic (Serbia) appealed on Jan. 23. AHO Charles Hollander KC dismissed the appeal on Feb. 19.
  • Mark Kaufman appealed on Jan. 9, then told the AHO panel he intended to withdraw. After no further contact, AHO Diana Tesic dismissed the appeal on Feb. 18.
  • Yalchin Manafli appealed. AHO Philippe Cavalieros dismissed it, finding substantial evidence supported the suspension.
  • Marino Jakic appealed on July 13. AHO Amani Khalifa upheld the suspension on Aug. 18 as “supported by substantial evidence.”

Many never appeal. Draginja Vukovic of Serbia chose not to, and none of the five individuals in the Jan. 20 release did. In every 2026 appeal described in the releases cited here, the suspension stood.

What happens to the time served

If a sanction follows, the time already spent provisionally suspended is credited against it. The ITIA’s own dates show the arithmetic:

  • Alana Tuayeva was provisionally suspended from Dec. 19, 2025. In March 2026 she accepted a suspension of three years and nine months and a $30,000 fine, of which $21,000 was suspended, after admitting to fixing two of her own matches at World Tennis Tour level. Her ban ends on Sept. 18, 2029, three years and nine months after the provisional suspension began, subject to repayment of outstanding fines.
  • Mark Kaufman was provisionally suspended from Dec. 24, 2025. In August 2026 he accepted 18 months and a $5,000 fine, of which $3,500 was suspended. His ban ends on June 23, 2027, 18 months after the provisional suspension began.

A sanction without a provisional stage starts when it is imposed. Serbian player Luka Todorovic accepted a nine-week suspension and a $10,000 fine, of which $7,500 was suspended, for failing to report a corrupt approach in 2023. His ban began on Aug. 19, 2026, and ends on Oct. 21, 2026.

Anti-doping runs on a separate track

The ITIA also administers the Tennis Anti-Doping Programme, which has its own rules on provisional suspensions and is not covered by the TACP sections above. It also allows a voluntary route: in August 2025 the ITIA said Australian player Dayne Kelly had elected to enter a voluntary provisional suspension while under investigation for multiple anti-doping offences. For how doping cases have tested those rules, see our report on the Vondrousova ban and the wider fight over tennis’ anti-doping rules.

The question it leaves

A provisional suspension trades one risk for another. The TACP’s own test asks whether the harm of leaving someone active outweighs the hardship of sidelining them before anything is proven, and an appeal to a hearing officer is the way to test that judgment before the case is decided. Every player named in the 2026 releases cited here had a career-high ranking outside the world’s top 500, the level of the sport where the ITIA’s corruption cases are concentrated in these examples. For how appeals can go further, and go badly, see the match-fixing appeal that ended with a longer ban.

Billie Jean King Cup Records — Titles by Nation, Most Wins, and Winning as Player and Captain

Steven Hodel
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Billie Jean King Cup Records — Titles by Nation, Most Wins, and Winning as Player and Captain

Czechia beat Ukraine 2-0 in Shenzhen on Sept. 27, 2026, to win the Billie Jean King Cup for the 12th time and the first time since 2018. Karolina Muchova beat Anhelina Kalinina 6-2, 6-3, and Linda Noskova clinched it against Elina Svitolina, 6-3, 7-6 (5). Only the United States, with 18, has won the women’s team competition more often.

This page collects the competition’s main records: titles by nation, the most successful players and captains, and the team marks that have stood since the first edition in 1963. Figures marked as coming from the ITF’s April 2026 notes were correct before that year’s Qualifiers and can move with every tie.

Titles by nation

Thirteen nations have won the competition, which began as the Federation Cup, was later known as the Fed Cup and was renamed the Billie Jean King Cup in September 2020. The counts below combine the ITF’s April 2026 title list with Czechia’s 2026 win. Czechia holds Czechoslovakia’s historical record, and Russia’s total includes the 2021 title won as the Russian Tennis Federation.

NationTitlesTitle years (where confirmed by the ITF)
United States18First in 1963; 1996, 1999, 2000; most recent 2017
Czechia121975, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1988 (as Czechoslovakia); 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2026
Australia71964, 1965, 1968, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1974
Italy62006, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2024, 2025
Spain51991, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1998
Russia52004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2021 (as Russian Tennis Federation)
France3—
Germany2—
Belgium12001
Canada12023
Slovakia1—
South Africa11972
Switzerland12022

Italy have won back-to-back titles twice, in 2009-10 and 2024-25, and Czechia won three in a row from 2014 to 2016, the last time any nation retained the trophy before Italy did it again, according to the ITF. Czechia’s six titles between 2011 and 2018 came against Russia (twice), Serbia, Germany, France and the United States.

The most recent finals

  • 2026: Czechia d. Ukraine 2-0, Shenzhen. Ukraine’s first final.
  • 2025: Italy d. United States 2-0, Shenzhen.
  • 2024: Italy d. Slovakia.
  • 2023: Canada d. Italy, Seville. Canada’s first title.
  • 2022: Switzerland d. Australia 2-0. Switzerland’s first title.
  • 2021: Russian Tennis Federation d. Switzerland 2-0.

Winning as player and captain

Billie Jean King is the most successful individual in the competition’s history, with 10 titles, according to the ITF: seven as a player, one of them as a playing captain, and three more as captain. She was on the United States team that won the first edition in London in 1963.

Barbora Strycova’s first year as Czechia’s captain ended with the 2026 title, making her the fourth woman to win the competition as both a player and a captain, after Margaret Court, Chris Evert and King, AP reported. AP credits Strycova with three titles as a player. The ITF’s April 2026 notes record that she was part of all six Czech title-winning seasons from 2011 to 2018 and played in the 2015, 2016 and 2018 finals, winning all four matches she contested in those ties.

Player records

Spain’s Arantxa Sanchez Vicario holds the all-time records for total wins, with 72, and singles wins, with 50, according to the ITF. Conchita Martinez is second on both lists, with 68 and 47. Together they led Spain to 10 finals and won 18 doubles matches as a pair, the most by any partnership.

The national leaders for the two most successful nations, from the ITF’s April 2026 notes:

  • United States: Chris Evert has the most wins by an American, 57-4, including 40-2 in singles, and the most ties played, 42. Billie Jean King is second on the wins list at 52-4.
  • Czechia: Helena Sukova leads for wins (57-16), singles wins (45-11) and ties played (54). Hana Mandlikova is second on the wins list at 49-12.

Team records

  • Most ties won: the United States, the only nation with more than 150 victories. They had 163 before the April 2026 Qualifiers.
  • Most ties played: Great Britain, with 226 before April 2026. Britain and the United States are the only nations to have played 200 or more.
  • Ever-present nations: Australia, France, Great Britain and Italy have competed in every season since 1963.
  • Comebacks from 0-2 down: nine since best-of-five ties were adopted in 1995. The most recent before April 2026 was Romania’s 3-2 win over Ukraine in the 2024 Qualifiers.
  • Nations Ranking No. 1: since the ranking was launched at the end of 2002, eight nations have held the top spot: Australia, Canada, Czechia, France, Italy, Russia, Slovakia and Switzerland.

Britain have reached four finals without winning one, losing to the United States in 1967 and 1981, Australia in 1971 and South Africa in 1972. The first edition, at Queen’s Club in London, drew 16 nations; the ITF says 148 entered in 2026, a record.

Related

For the format, see how the Billie Jean King Cup works and our 2026 Finals guide. The men’s equivalents are our Davis Cup winners and Laver Cup winners pages. Players from this year’s final: Linda Noskova, Karolina Muchova, Katerina Siniakova and Elina Svitolina.

Four of Beijing’s Projected Top 15 Seeds Are Out, and Defending Champion Anisimova Is One of Them

Steven Hodel
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Four of Beijing’s Projected Top 15 Seeds Are Out, and Defending Champion Anisimova Is One of Them

Amanda Anisimova beat Linda Noskova 6-0, 2-6, 6-2 in last year’s China Open final to win her second WTA 1000 title. She will not be in Beijing to defend it.

The WTA said Anisimova, Jessica Pegula, Marta Kostyuk and Sorana Cirstea have withdrawn from the tournament, whose main draw begins on Wednesday, Sept. 30. All four were on the WTA’s projected seeding list for the 96-player event: Pegula at No. 3, Kostyuk at No. 10, Anisimova at No. 11 and Cirstea at No. 15.

Anisimova has a left wrist injury, the same problem that forced her out of the Singapore Tennis Open. In a statement released through the WTA, she said she needed “to focus on recovering from an injury” and that she hoped to be back in Beijing next year. The WTA did not specify Pegula’s injury. She also withdrew from Singapore before it began, so Beijing would have been her first tournament since she reached the US Open semifinals.

The rest of the list. Kostyuk played in Guadalajara after the US Open but missed Ukraine’s run to the Billie Jean King Cup final with a right wrist injury, The Associated Press reported. Cirstea has not competed since New York, according to the WTA. The four join six earlier singles withdrawals listed by the tour: Madison Keys (abdominal injury), McCartney Kessler (hip), Zhang Shuai (change of schedule), Karolina Pliskova (back), Emma Raducanu (leg) and Hanne Vandewinkel (illness). The WTA had already listed Alexandra Eala (schedule change), Victoria Mboko (knee) and Hailey Baptiste (injury) as not competing in Beijing.

Who is left at the top. World No. 1 Elena Rybakina heads the field in her first tournament since winning the US Open, her third Grand Slam title. With Pegula out, the three highest names on the WTA’s projected seeding list are Rybakina, Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff, the 2024 champion. Iga Swiatek (2023) and Naomi Osaka (2019) are the other former Beijing champions in the field.

Noskova, last year’s runner-up, and Karolina Muchova, the 2024 finalist, remain entered after spending Sunday in Shenzhen winning both singles rubbers for Czechia in a 2-0 victory over Ukraine in the Billie Jean King Cup final, AP reported. Noskova’s win in the second rubber came against Elina Svitolina, 6-3, 7-6 (5). Svitolina is also on the Beijing entry list.

What it means. The 32 seeds in Beijing receive first-round byes, so every seeded withdrawal changes which players get one. The WTA measures ranking changes at the event against what a player earned in the same week a year earlier, which is why Anisimova’s absence leaves last year’s title result without a defence. The tour’s rules on injury withdrawals from its biggest events are set out in our explainer on WTA mandatory events.

The schedule. Qualifying runs Sept. 28-29 and the first round Sept. 30-Oct. 1. The singles final is on Sunday, Oct. 11, not before 7 p.m. local time, which is 7 a.m. Eastern. Total prize money is $9,415,725, and the champion receives 1,000 ranking points and $1,151,380, according to the WTA. All eight singles wild cards went to Chinese players, led by Zheng Qinwen.

For the format, draw and how to watch, see our China Open guide. The WTA’s second 1000-level stop in China, the Wuhan Open, follows in the week of Oct. 12.

Donna Vekic Profile — Olympic Silver, and a Queen’s Title as a Lucky Loser

Steven Hodel
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Donna Vekic Profile — Olympic Silver, and a Queen’s Title as a Lucky Loser

Donna Vekic lost in the final round of qualifying at Queen’s Club in June, to Anna Blinkova. A week later she was the champion. She got into the main draw as a lucky loser, beat Mika Stojsavljevic, Marie Bouzkova, Karolina Pliskova and Katie Boulter, then took the final from Emma Raducanu 6-0, 7-6(6), according to the WTA and the LTA. In the second set she trailed 5-2 and saved two set points. It was her first WTA 500 title and the fifth of her career.

“Winning 6-0 in tennis can be a curse sometimes,” she said afterwards, according to the WTA. “But I was just thinking — you know, she started playing really well in the second set, really raised her level, and I was just thinking to myself, ‘Okay, just stay with her and try to make her play an extra ball.'”

The week fit a career that has kept producing its best results on grass and on big stages: a Wimbledon semifinal, an Olympic silver medal for Croatia and a first WTA final at 16.

Osijek and an early start

Vekic was born in Osijek, Croatia, on 28 June 1996. Both parents played professional sport, according to her WTA biography: her mother, Brankica, was a hurdler and her father, Igor, a football goalkeeper. She grew up playing and training in London, according to the LTA, and speaks Croatian, English and Italian.

She reached her first WTA final in Tashkent in 2012 on her tour main-draw debut, the youngest WTA finalist since Tamira Paszek in 2005, and broke into the top 100 in January 2013. At Kuala Lumpur in 2014, ranked 95th, she beat Dominika Cibulkova, then No. 10, in the final. At 17 years and 10 months she was the youngest WTA champion since 2006, according to the WTA.

Nottingham to the top 20

Her second title came on grass at Nottingham in 2017, where she beat Johanna Konta, then ranked eighth, in the final. In 2018 she held four match points in the Washington final and lost to Svetlana Kuznetsova, and she reached her first Grand Slam fourth round at Wimbledon. The next year she beat Petra Kvitova, then No. 2, on the way to the St. Petersburg final, reached the Nottingham final again and made her first Grand Slam quarterfinal at the US Open, where Belinda Bencic beat her. She finished 2019 at No. 19.

Knee surgery and the way back

Vekic had knee surgery at the start of 2021, and in the spring of 2022 she tore a plantar fascia and dealt with further knee and foot injuries, according to her WTA biography. She won Courmayeur in October 2021, beating Clara Tauson in the final, and in 2022 came through qualifying to reach the San Diego final, where Iga Swiatek beat her. In 2023 she reached the Australian Open quarterfinals, losing to the eventual champion Aryna Sabalenka, won her fourth title in Monterrey and was runner-up in Berlin.

Wimbledon and Paris, 2024

Her first Grand Slam semifinal came at Wimbledon in 2024, in her 43rd Grand Slam main draw, according to the WTA. “Those couple of years were very tough,” she said after the quarterfinal, referring to 2021 and 2022. “I didn’t think I was ever going to come back to the level that I even had last year.”

In the semifinal she hit 42 winners against Jasmine Paolini and took the first set 6-2, but Paolini won 2-6, 6-4, 7-6(8) in the longest women’s semifinal in Wimbledon history, according to the WTA. The last two points were decided by Vekic forehands that broke down under Paolini’s defence, the WTA reported.

Weeks later she reached the Olympic final in Paris and lost to Zheng Qinwen. The silver medal was Croatia’s first Olympic medal in women’s singles, according to her WTA biography. She also reached the Bad Homburg final that year and rose to a career-high No. 17 in January 2025 after a fourth-round run at the Australian Open.

Playing style

Grass has been her most productive surface for finals. Before Queen’s, six of her 15 WTA finals had come on the surface, according to the WTA. In the Queen’s final she broke Raducanu three times in the opening set and lost one point on her first serve in that set, according to the LTA. She says her favourite surface is hard court.

Grand Slam best results

  • Wimbledon: semifinals (2024)
  • Australian Open: quarterfinals (2023)
  • US Open: quarterfinals (2019)

Season snapshot — 22 September 2026

Vekic is the eighth seed at the Singapore Tennis Open this week, ranked 37th on the tournament’s seeding list, and opens against Wang Xinyu, who beat her in Cincinnati in August. She won the Queen’s title in June and reached WTA 125 finals in Istanbul and Manila earlier in the season. Her 2026 record stood at 26-20 on the WTA’s player page before this week. Our Singapore draw preview covers the rest of the field.

This snapshot is dated and will change. The career record above does not.

Svitolina Breaks Paolini Five Times and Ukraine Will Play Czechia for the Billie Jean King Cup

Steven Hodel
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Svitolina Breaks Paolini Five Times and Ukraine Will Play Czechia for the Billie Jean King Cup

Elina Svitolina broke Jasmine Paolini’s first service game to love on Saturday and never let the semi-final settle. She broke again for 3-0, and when Paolini found a way back to 3-2 with a big forehand return, Svitolina broke a third time and took the set 6-2 in 31 minutes, according to the Spanish news agency EFE.

The second set went the same way. Svitolina won 6-2, 6-2 in an hour and three minutes, and Ukraine are in the Billie Jean King Cup final for the first time. They will play Czechia, the 11-time champions, on Sunday at the Shenzhen Bay Sports Centre Arena.

The tie. Svitolina, ranked seventh, converted five of her seven break points and won 58 of the 89 points played, EFE reported. The 20th-ranked Paolini had one break point all match and converted it in the first set. EFE described Svitolina controlling the match both from the baseline and at the net on the indoor hard court, and punishing every short ball Paolini gave her. Anhelina Kalinina, ranked 48th, had given Ukraine the lead earlier by beating Italy’s Tyra Grant, ranked 150th, 6-3, 6-4. With Ukraine two matches up, the doubles was not needed.

Svitolina said on court that it was a very special moment for the team and for Ukraine, given the difficult situation people in the country are living through, EFE reported, and that last year’s defeat in Shenzhen had forced her to stay focused and raise her level. Captain Illya Marchenko gave all the credit to his players.

Last year. The two nations met at the same stage in the same arena in 2025, and Svitolina had the same chance then. Marta Kostyuk put Ukraine 1-0 up, and Svitolina led Paolini by a set and 4-2, according to the WTA. Paolini came back to win 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, then partnered Sara Errani to win the deciding doubles, and Italy went on to beat the United States for their second consecutive title. This time Italy, the two-time defending champions, miss out on a fourth consecutive final and a third straight title, EFE noted.

How Ukraine got here. Ukraine played the week without Kostyuk, who pulled out before the quarter-finals to rest her wrist, the WTA reported. Their quarter-final against Belgium on Thursday went the distance. Kalinina beat Jana Otzipka 6-7 (6), 6-1, 6-1; Svitolina was then upset by the 217th-ranked Greet Minnen 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-4; and Kalinina and Lyudmyla Kichenok won the deciding doubles against Magali Kempen and Lara Salden 6-3, 6-3, according to the Associated Press and the WTA.

The opponents. Czechia swept Britain 2-0 in the quarter-finals and beat Spain 2-0 in Friday’s semi-final, the AP reported. Karolina Muchova beat Jessica Bouzas Maneiro 7-5, 6-4, and Wimbledon champion Linda Noskova, ranked sixth, beat Cristina Bucsa 7-6 (5), 6-2 to clinch it. The Czech squad also includes Marie Bouzkova, Sara Bejlek and Katerina Siniakova, the doubles world No. 1, the WTA noted. Czechia are playing for a 12th title in the competition once called the Fed Cup; only the United States, with 18, have won it more often, according to the AP.

How the final works. Finals ties are played in one day: two singles matches followed, if needed, by a doubles, each best of three tie-break sets with regular advantage scoring. The first nation to two matches wins the Cup. Sunday’s line-ups had not been announced at the time of writing. For the full schedule and broadcast details, see our Billie Jean King Cup Finals 2026 guide, and for the competition’s structure, How Billie Jean King Cup Works.

What it means. Ukraine reached the semi-finals for the first time only last year, according to the AP, and have never won the competition. A win on Sunday would give Czechia a 12th title and Ukraine a first. For the players on both squads, the week also counts as one of the two team-competition appearances required for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic tennis event.

Profiles: Elina Svitolina, Jasmine Paolini, Linda Noskova, Karolina Muchova.

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