2023 Japan Open Tennis Championships: Taylor Fritz, The One to Beat?
Can Any of the Players from Japan Make a Deep Run at the 2023 Japan Open Tennis Championships?
Taylor Fritz is One of Five Americans in the Japan Open Men’s Singles Draw
Tournaments come and go on the ATP Tour, but the Kinoshita Group Japan Open Tennis Championships is a mainstay as the longest-running ATP in Asia. Keep an eye on the five Americans competing in the 2023 Japan Open Tennis Championships.
The tournament immediately follows the Shanghai Masters event, with none of the top four seeds reaching the quarterfinals, much to the surprise of those making tennis predictions.
There were no tournaments in 2020 and 2021 due to the global pandemic. Taylor Fritz topped fellow American Frances Tiafoe in the 2022 men’s singles final.
Pete Sampras was the last player to win the men’s singles title at the Japan Open in 1993 and 1994.
The next Grand Slam tournament is the Australian Open in January. Among the players currently entered in the Japan Open, Casper Ruud and Alexander Zverev have the best odds to win in Melbourne at +2000, followed by Fritz and Ben Shelton at +2500.
Here is a look at some of the storylines in the 32-player tournament that begins on Monday in Tokyo.
A Look at the US Hopes
Defending champion Fritz is set to be the top seed when the tournament gets underway. When he won in 2022, it was the first time an American won the event since Sampras and Jim Courier combined to win five titles in a row from 1992-96 with that run including four straight All-American finals.
Fritz had to win four three-set matches in the 2022 tournament.
Fritz is far from the only American in the field at the 2023 Japan Open Tennis Championships.
Tiafoe and Tommy Paul are set to be seeded, with Ben Shelton and Mackenzie McDonald also in the field. They could all factor into the tennis predictions in what could be a wide-open field.
In Shanghai, Fritz won his first match before falling to Diego Schwartzman. Paul picked up a pair of victories before he ran into Andrey Rublev. Shelton, fresh off an impressive run at the US Open, played well in Shanghai before a loss to fellow American Sebastian Korda.
Americans Marcos Giron and Brandon Nakashima are also in the qualifying draw. Nakashima upset Holger Rune in Shanghai.
Other Top Contenders
Casper Ruud and Alexander Zverev join Fritz as players ranked in the top 10 in the current ATP rankings in the 2023 Japan Open Tennis Championships field.
Since reaching the finals at the clay-court tournament in Bastad, it has been a rough stretch for Ruud.
He was eliminated in each of the next four tournaments by players ranked outside the top 30. That included a second-round loss to Zhizhen Zhang at US Open. He did win a pair of matches in Shanghai before his run ended against unseeded Fabian Marozsan.
Zverev had a recent run to the semifinals in Beijing before falling to Daniil Medvedev. Keep an eye on Zverev when making tennis picks. Zverev lost in the second round to Roman Safiullin in Shanghai.
Hubert Hurkacz, who is in the semifinals in Shanghai, is joined by Alex de Minaur, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Karen Khachanov, and Cameron Norrie as other top-20 players in the field.
A Local Flavor
There are plenty of players coming from Japan in the field. led by Yoshihito Nishioka, Yosuke Watanuki, Masashi Shimabukuro and Shinataro Machizuki.
When looking at some past tennis scores, Kei Nishikori won the Japan Open in 2012 and 2014 and reached the final in 2018.
Players from Japan won four titles in five years in Shanghai before the event was added to the Grand Prix circuit.
Since then, Americans have won 13 titles.
The number of local products in the field could increase since Naoki Nakagawa, Kaichi Uchida, and Yasutaka Uchiyama. Yuta Shimizu, Hiroki Moriya, Taro Daniel, and Rio Noguchi are entered in the qualifying draw with Daniel the No. 4 seed.
What’s Next?
There will be ATP 500 events in Vienna, Austria and Basel, Switzerland the week after the Japan Open before the last Masters event of 2023 begins in late October in Paris.
That will be the last chance for players to fight for the last few spots in the eight-player ATP Finals in Italy in November.
If the ATP Finals began today, the eight players in the singles field would be Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev, Jannik Sinner, Andrey Rublev, Stefanos Tsitispas, Alexander Zverev and Holger Rune. Fritz is currently ninth.
When Fritz made it into the 2020 ATP Finals, it was the first time an American made qualified for 2018.
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