The 2016 edition of the Shanghai Rolex Masters is the eighth of the nine Masters 1000 tournaments on the tour and is the only one not played in Europe or North America. The 2016 championship is the event’s eighth anniversary, which is also a lucky number in Chinese culture. This makes the 2016 Shanghai Rolex Masters extra special. Only two players in this field have won the tournament before, and they have also won it back-to-back. However, both Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray are not in peak form, which means second-tier players will be in business to contend for Asia’s biggest tennis event of the year.
The competition in the 56-player main draw begins on Sunday, October 9.
Event Details
Event: Shanghai Rolex Masters
Category: ATP World Tour – Masters 1000
Date: October 9-16, 2016
Location: Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena – Shanghai, China
With a prize money allotment of nearly $4 million, the Shanghai Masters offers substantial bang for the buck. It’s a high-level event which is compensated accordingly. There’s a recognition that the final Masters event of the year, Paris-Bercy, is so close to the World Tour Finals and the Davis Cup Final that its harder to expect all the top players to go there. Shanghai generally gets a stronger field than Bercy, and the prize money reflects that.
The points structure under the ATP system is that the championship means 1,000 points. A runner-up finish is worth 600. A semifinal result is 360 points, and a quarterfinal appearance offers 180 points. A round-of-16 results provides 90 points, a round-of-32 showing 45 points.
Former Champions and Results (5 Years)
Year Champion Runner-up Score
2015 – Novak Djokovic def. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga – 6-2, 6-4
2014 – Roger Federer def. Gilles Simon – 7-6, 7-6
2013 – Novak Djokovic def. Juan Martin del Potro – 6-1, 3-6, 7-6
2012 – Novak Djokovic def. Andy Murray – 5-7, 7-6, 6-3
2011 – Andy Murray def. David Ferrer – 7-5, 6-4
Player Info:
Like Novak Djokovic has won the Shanghai Rolex Masters a record three times. Djokovic has been the runaway No. 1 and was hardly challenged last year. Djokovic has lost only 53 matches in the last six years, but his last three defeats have raised serious questions about his future.
Will he be able to dominate the tour as he has done in the past six years? Does he have the hunger and motivation to create more history? How serious is his injury?
Unspecified personal problems hampered his progress at Wimbledon and to a certain extent at the Rio Olympics. A wrist injury ruled him out of the Cincinnati Masters, and in a rather strange fortnight in the Big Apple, where he went deeper than expected, Djokovic suffered a four-set loss to Stan Wawrinka in the U.S. Open final.
Djokovic is also the defending champion in Shanghai. How he fares amidst these injury concerns remains to be seen.
Andy Murray will have his sights firmly attached to that elusive world No. 1 ranking. It has always looked out of his reach, but with Djokovic appearing fragile and defending a plethora of points, courtesy of his invincible form last year, the Brit has an outside shot. Murray had a great opportunity at the U.S. Open but looked drained in a five-set loss he suffered against Kei Nishikori. Blame the unrelenting ATP schedule. Murray found himself on the wrong side again, falling to Juan Martin del Potro in a five-set classic in the Davis Cup semifinals. The world No. 2 is in Beijing for the China Open and will try to use it as a catalyst to peak in Shanghai and soar even higher toward top of the world rankings.
Stan Wawrinka is in good form and has won 10 of his last 11 matches. The Swiss stunned the world by winning his third major title, defeating Djokovic in the finals in the U.S. Open in New York. Wawrinka is quietly adding trophies to his cabinet and expanding his resume. Wawrinka has the weapons to beat anybody and run away with the tournament, but he just doesn’t have the consistency to back his enormous ability week in and week out. If he can quietly play his way through the initial rounds, he becomes deadly dangerous at the business end of tournaments. This year Wawrinka skipped the Japan Open, where he was a defending champion, with a back injury. He may have a lackluster record in Masters 1000s, but that doesn’t mean he’ll appear flat in Shanghai. His goal is to find consistency in second tier tournaments, and the Shanghai Masters may well be the start of something.
The ATP race for London is heating up nicely. Tomas Berdych, Marin Cilic and David Goffin are all in the mix for the London berth but the Croatian looks like the frontrunner. Berdych may have the lead but Cilic can do some serious damage in the bigger events. The 2014 U.S. Open champion didn’t do anything exceptional in Grand Slams this year but did break the Big Four’s 18-tournament Masters streak when he convincingly beat Murray in the Cincinnati Masters final. If he catches fire in Shanghai, he’ll run away with the title again.
Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena
The Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena was built in 2003 to host the ATP World Tour Finals, the season-ending tour event which was then called the Masters Cup. The event enjoyed a few very successful years before the ATP decided that for television and other reasons, it needed to stage the ATP championships in London. The main stadium court has a retractable roof. It seats 13,779 spectators. A Masters event still represents good visibility and usage for Shanghai, making the investment in this stadium and complex worth it.
