Tennis Has Beijing, Tokyo And A Packed October. Why Is The Post-US Open Calendar So Brutal?

Look at the ATP calendar for the next eight weeks and you'll struggle to find a day without a tournament. Beijing runs September 30 to October 6, Shanghai starts the next day, and the schedule rolls through Europe until the ATP Finals in Turin on November 22.

That's the post-US Open stretch, and it's relentless. My view is that the calendar isn't brutal by accident. It's the result of several reasonable decisions that add up to something no player would design.

The stretch, week by week

The China Open in Beijing is an ATP 500 for the men and a WTA 1000 for the women. The men's draw ends October 6, while the women's tournament runs to October 11 with a 96-player singles draw. The Japan Open in Tokyo overlaps the same window.

Then the Rolex Shanghai Masters begins on October 7 and lasts until October 18, a 12-day event. The following week brings three ATP tournaments at once: Brussels, Lyon and Almaty, from October 19 to 25.

The week after that features Vienna and Basel, running October 26 to November 1, and the Paris Masters starts on October 31. That means Paris begins while Vienna and Basel are still going, giving those two weeks an overlap of two days. Stockholm follows from November 6, and the ATP Finals begin on November 14.

Why it ends up this way

Each piece has a logic. Asia is a major commercial market, and the swing through Beijing, Tokyo and Shanghai gives sponsors and broadcasters a stage. The European indoor events fill the weeks leading up to the Finals, when players are chasing ranking points and qualification spots.

Masters 1000 tournaments are generally compulsory for the top men, so stars can't skip Shanghai or Paris without consequences. Smaller events need good fields to survive, and their organizers have little say over where they sit on the calendar.

In other words, no one decides to make the stretch punishing. Everyone just fills the weeks they've been given, and the total becomes a marathon.

The cost for players

The players are the ones who can't be in two places at once. A top-ten player might fly from Beijing to Shanghai and then to Europe, adjusting from one time zone and surface to another with only a few days between events.

It's also a stretch where physical wear matters. Indoor hard courts in Europe are faster than the outdoor courts in China, and the conditions change every week. That's hard on bodies and harder on timing.

Players have complained about the length of the season for years, and the fall schedule is a regular target. Nobody disputes the commercial logic. The argument is about whether the tours have gone past the point where more tennis helps anyone.

Is there a better version?

I can see a few possible fixes. The tours could shorten the Masters events back to a single week, as they were for years. They could also reduce overlap by moving some of the 250-level tournaments earlier or later.

Another option would be to give the top players more room to skip events without losing ranking points. That would let stars protect their bodies without hurting the tournaments, though it would also change what a ranking means.

None of these is simple, because every tournament is a business with its own contracts and sponsors. But the current system asks for the same people to play almost every week from September to November, and that can't go on forever.

Still, fans get something out of it. The fall brings some of the most unpredictable tennis of the year, when tired favorites lose to hungry challengers. Is that unpredictability worth the toll it takes, or is it a sign that the calendar has become too long to produce the best tennis?