Shanghai Masters

The Shanghai Masters is an ATP Masters 1000 tennis tournament held in Shanghai on hard courts, played in October. One tour, one draw: 96 players in the men's singles.

Shanghai is the largest event of the Asian swing and the last Masters played outdoors before the season moves inside. It arrives when the calendar has been running for nine months, so freshness matters as much as form and the early rounds produce more upsets than the seedings suggest.

The courts are quick and the conditions are usually mild, which leaves the draw open: the surface does not favour one style strongly enough to narrow the field before it starts.

For players outside the top eight it is one of the last chances to force a way into the season finals, which is why the intensity of the second week is often higher than the time of year would imply.

Shanghai has held Masters status since 2009 and plays at the Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena, whose roof opens in eight sections shaped like the petals of a magnolia, the city flower. The tournament stretched to twelve days and a ninety-six-player draw in 2023.

That expansion came with the tournament's return. Shanghai was last played in 2019, missed the next three seasons along with the rest of the Chinese swing, and came back in 2023. Novak Djokovic has won it four times, more than any other player, with titles in 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2018.

Entry lists, the order of play and the tournament's own announcements sit on its page at the tour.

Two dates exist for this tournament: the day qualifying begins and the day the main draw does. The ones above are the second kind.

The Shanghai Masters main draw holds 96 players in single elimination, 7 rounds to the title and 95 matches in all, with the top 32 seeds held out of the first round so their route is one match shorter. How seeding, byes and qualifying work is explained in the guides.

The Shanghai Masters draw with every score is on its own page and updates while the tournament is being played.

7 of the 8 quarter-finalists in the men's draw were seeded, which is close to what the seedings predicted.

Rights to the Shanghai Masters are sold country by country, so the answer depends entirely on where you are sitting. No public broadcaster in the major markets carries it, which is normal for everything below the majors.

The Shanghai Masters is played in Shanghai, in east Asia, and matches are played while Europe is asleep or waking up: the finals usually land in the European morning.

Shanghai spreads a large draw across two weeks and covers more courts than the other Asian events, so there is more to watch. The schedule runs from late morning to late evening local time, which means the early matches land in the European night and the finals in the European morning. Because it is the last outdoor Masters of the year, the second week often features players visibly managing their fitness.

Beyond the Shanghai Masters, the viewing guide covers the season service by service.