The 2016 Hong Kong Open is yet another installment in what is a tennis feast in East Asia. A steady stream of events, one after the other and some coexisting in the same week, have come to China, Japan, and surrounding areas. This is one more prelude to the 2016 WTA Finals in Singapore later this month.
The competition in the 32-player main draw began on Monday, October 10.
Event Details
Event: Hong Kong Open
Category: WTA International tier
Date: October 10 – 16, 2016
Location: Victoria Park Tennis Courts – Hong Kong
The Hong Kong Open has a standard $250,000 purse for an international level event. Players are craving the money to a certain extent, but trying to get one more large infusion of rankings points is probably the bigger goal here. That’s what would make a deep run particularly satisfying. It could make a difference in seeding and placement in the 2017 Australian Open, which – in terms of the number of tournaments on the tour – is not that far away. The season will be over before the end of October, before returning in January.
The points structure under any of the WTA International tier events on the women’s tour will offer 280 player points towards the winner’s ranking, with 180 points going to the tournament’s runner-up. Semifinalists get 110 points, quarterfinalists 60, and round of 16 players 30 points. First round (round of 32) losers get only one point.
Former Champions and Results (5 Years)
Year Champion Runner-up Score
2015 – Jelena Jankovic def. Angelique Kerber – 3-6, 7-6, 6-1
2014 – Sabine Lisicki def. Karolina Pliskova – 7-5, 6-3
Player Info:
Angelique Kerber got knocked out midway through the China Open, falling to Elina Svitolina, but she can be forgiven for running out of steam. It’s been a long year and a hard climb for the German to the position of World No. 1. She Is not physically fresh, playing one week after another in Asia, but she would rather stay active than go cold for a week and then try to regain her game at the WTA Finals. Kerber is the highest-ranked player in this event by a good margin. Venus Williams and Johanna Konta, the next two highest-ranked players, are not in the top 10. Kerber has a chance to win this tournament, but she might not have a full tank left at this point.
Venus Williams figured prominently in the U.S. Open. She had a match point against Karolina Pliskova in the fourth round but could not convert it. She watched a winnable match slip through her fingers, and that allowed Pliskova to advance to the semifinals, where she beat Serena Williams, Venus’ sister. Venus gets a chance to make one more statement before 2016 is over. She has had an up and down year, for the most part, but she started slow and has progressed as the season has moved on. She is still just 23-14 on the year and 13-10 on the hard courts, which is a sub part record for her. She is 5-3 on clay and 5-1 on grass.
Johanna Konta has to be even more exhausted than Kerber is – her year hasn’t involved as much tennis, but after the U.S. Open, she has played a lot. On the year, she is 43-21 overall. That includes a 35-13 record on the hard courts, which is by far her best surface of the bunch. She is just 2-3 on clay this year and 6-4 on grass. She is still in the semifinals of the China Open, in fact, preparing to play Madison Keys. Konta is weak on clay and grass, two organic surfaces, but she’s very strong on hardcourts and has continued to show that this fall.
Victoria Park
This is a facility which dates back to 1957, part of a larger public park in Hong Kong. However, renovations were made in the early part of this century which installed tennis courts, including a stadium court with seating of just over 3,600. Before these courts were created, Victoria Park had been a scene of protest and controversy in Hong Kong’s history. This is a site which is very much in the heart of Hong Kong, not something in the periphery and pushed to the edges of public memory.
