Shanghai Masters 2024: Hubert Hurkacz will not launch a title defence at the 12-day tennis event, withdrawing from the tournament with only days to go for the main draw to be announced.
The eighth ATP Master 1000 event of the tennis calendar, the Shanghai Masters 2024 will be held from October 2 to October 13 at the Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena, the largest tennis venue in Asia. The Shanghai Masters offers important ranking points.
The hard-court tournament for men will have World No. 1 Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev, Andrey Rublev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Tommy Paul, Holger Rune, Frances Tiafoe, Ben Shelton, Grigor Dimitrov, Jack Draper, Taylor Fritz, Casper Ruud, Stan Wawrinka, among others, in action, with defending champion Hubert Hurkacz and Alexander Zverev among the notable withdrawals. Four-time champion Novak Djokovic is set to return to Shanghai after a 5-year break - this in a year in which he had to withdraw from the French Open and won an Olympic gold.
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The draw of the Shanghai Masters will be announced on September 30, starting with qualifying. The main draw will begin on October 2 and will go on till October 13, culminating with the singles and doubles finals. In India, Sony Sports and Sony LIV have the broadcast and streaming rights of the ATP tournaments, with the Shanghai Open to be available from October 2 to October 9 from 10 am (IST) onward. On October 10 and 11, at the quarter-final stage, the matches begin at 12.30 pm, while the semi-finals on October 12 and the final on October 13 have a start time of 2 pm.
The Shanghai Masters is a hard court tournament and will feature 96 singles players and 32 doubles players in action. The matches are played in best of three formats. In recent times, Carlos Alcaraz and Alexander Zverev have been vocal about the jam-packed tennis calendar, which hardly offers players any breather. Zverev, who is skipping the tournament owing to a pneumonia diagnosis after his recent Laver Cup outing, has been critical of the ATP’s punitive action against players who skip its events.
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