ATP announces events to replace Covid-scrapped Chinese swing
The ATP has issued an update to its 2022 calendar, with six events in September and October replacing the regular Chinese events last held in 2019.
The Shanghai Masters, Beijing Open, Chengdu Open and the Zhuhai Championships will not take place in 2022 due to ongoing restrictions related to Covid.
Instead, six single-year events have been added to replace the Chinese hard court period after the tour moves on from the US Open.
The first will be in San Diego, USA on outdoor hard courts between 19-25th September, before concurrent events in Seoul, South Korea and Tel Aviv, Israel from 26th September to 2nd October, held on outdoor and indoor hard courts respectively.
The tour then returns to Europe for indoor hard events in Florence, Italy and Gijon, Spain from 10-16th October, followed by an outdoor hard court event in Naples, Italy from 17-23rd October.
How the new events will slot into the ATP calendar in September and October
The ATP first issued single-year event licences in 2020 as a response to event cancellations due to the pandemic.
The Astana Open was an example, having two editions as a single-year event in 2020 and 2021.
This year, the tournament in Kazakhstan elevates from an ATP 250 to a 500 level event to be played alongside the Japan Open in Tokyo in place of the former St Petersburg Open.
Unfortunately, with the absence of the Shanghai Masters, the update does mean that for a third year running the ATP tour will not have a full slate of Masters 1000 tournaments, holding eight instead of the usual nine contested until 2019.
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