Zhuhai, Basel, Vienna

WTA Elite Trophy Zhuhai; ATP Basel and Vienna

I love this map! Vertical Italy and Japan!

The women enter the penultimate week of the WTA season, and this year it makes sense, at last, as it is the week of the 2nd banana YEC - The WTA Elite Trophy, in Zhuhai. The men warm up for the last Masters (Paris) by having two indoor ATP 500 - Basel and Vienna.

Hengqin Life WTA Elite Trophy Zhuhai

Hong Kong - Zhuhai - Macau bridge/tunnel: longest sea crossing on Earth (55km)

Barty, Wang; Goerges, Vandeweghe; Kvitova, Svitolina; Venus, Pliskova
four years of Zhuhai winners and runner-ups. Not too shabby! Cool trophies too!

So this is the 5th and last WTA Elite Trophy taking place in Zhuhai. Twelve singles players divided in four groups. Winners go to the SF stage. Who qualified? In theory we go from #9 to #19 and add a WC for China. But there are a few top players who shut down for the year for various reasons.

Here are the players in the lovely named groups:

Azalea:     Bertens[1], Vekic[8], Yastremska[10]

Camellia:  Kenin[2], Riske[7], Muchova[11]

Orchid:     Keys[3], Martic[5], Zheng[12-WC]

Rose:      Sabalenka[4], Mertens[6], Sakkari[9]

DRAW

DOUBLES DRAW

OOP

Aryna Sabalenka and The Popcorn Cup.

Let's see what the guys are doing this week. There are about 5 guys - Zverev, Berrettini (like whoa!), RBA, Goffin, Fognini - still hoping to qualify for the YEC, so these 500 points look juicy.

Swiss Indoors Basel

Lady Helvetia looking over The Rhine (beautiful and kinda sad? Except for that f-ing seagull...)

This is an ATP 500, so the draw has 32 players, eight seeds with no bye. 

Federer and The Man share the 1st quarter and in there you can find Albot, The Tiaf v Evans.

2nd quarter goes to The Tsi and Fognini. Also in there ARV, Krajinovic.

Goffin, RBA go into the 3rd quarter along with Cilic, Gasquet, Copil.

Finally in the 4th we get Paire and Zverev, with sidekicks Struff, de Minaur, Fritz.

DRAW

DOUBLES DRAW

OOP

Roger Federer - 10th Basel win! (©ATPTour)

Erste Bank Open Vienna

Staying with the "sitting person with a suitcase" theme - Kindertransport Memorial in Westbahnhof
(this is about a really sad time, at least no seagull is involved!)

Again an ATP 500, same type of draw, eight seeds no byes. Here's how they're drawn:

1st quarter gets Thiem and Coric. Also here Basilashvili v Verdasco, PCB v The Shap.

2nd quarter has Berrettini, FAA and, among others, Edmund, Dimitrov, Raonic, Rublev.

In the 3rd we get Pella and Monfils who are joined by Lopez v Simon and Sinner.

Lastly, Schwartzman and The Khach with secondary characters like Herbert, Querrey, Mannarino are in the 4th.

DRAW

DOUBLES DRAW

OOP

Dominic Thiem (winner, because he's taller) and Diego Schwartzman (runner-up, obviously why...)