Beijing: Djokovic wins China Open as De Minaur retires

Novak Djokovic has won the China Open in Beijing. In the ATP 500 final he beat Australia's Alex De Minaur 7-6(3) 0-1, with his opponent retiring in the second set. The Serb takes home the trophy and the 500 points the tournament awards to its champion.

The match lasted one set and one game. In the first set the two stayed level until the tie-break, which Djokovic dominated by seven points to three. In the second, after the only game played, De Minaur stopped and the draw records a retirement. There are no other official details, so we stick to what the numbers say.

A half-finished final, then, but a full tournament. Djokovic played five rounds at the age of 39, with two heavy comebacks: one in the round of 16 and one in the quarter-finals. And he showed a consistency after the summer that was far from guaranteed, as his season shows.

The road began in the third round against Portugal's Nuno Borges, beaten 6-3 7-6(2). Then came the round of 16 against China's Bu Yunchaokete: Djokovic lost the first set 4-6, won the second in a tie-break (7-6(2)) and closed out the third 6-2.

The toughest match came in the quarter-finals against Alexander Zverev. The German won the first set 6-4, but Djokovic answered with two identical sets, 6-4 and 6-4, and took the semi-final. So the Serb strung together two comebacks in a row, against Bu and against Zverev.

In the semi-final Daniil Medvedev left the court with the Serb ahead 7-5 5-3: here too the draw records a retirement. The Russian had previously eliminated Pablo Carreno-Busta, Jan-Lennard Struff and Francisco Cerundolo without dropping a set. Against Djokovic he lost the first set 7-5 and did not complete the second.

On the other side of the draw De Minaur built his run to the final with four wins, two of them comebacks. He beat Mariano Navone 7-6(4) 6-2, then Quentin Halys 3-6 7-6(5) 7-5, then Andrey Rublev 1-6 6-2 6-3 after clearly losing the first set. In the semi-final Hubert Hurkacz stopped at 6-4 3-2 in the Australian's favour.

The most striking fact concerns the retirements: there were three in the whole tournament (31 matches played), and they came in the last three matches, the two semi-finals and the final. So rather than a balanced final, we are talking about a week that ended a little earlier than planned. The 500 points for the title are still real.

The head-to-head with De Minaur speaks for itself: 4-0 to Djokovic. The first meeting was the round of 16 at the 2023 Australian Open, won 6-2 6-1 6-2. Then came the quarter-finals of the 2024 Monte-Carlo Masters 1000 (7-5 6-4) and the round of 16 at Wimbledon 2025, where the Australian started strongly and won the first set 6-1 before losing 6-4 6-4 6-4. Beijing is the fourth win in a row. Across the four meetings the Serb has won 9 sets to 1.

Now to Djokovic's season. The Serb is No. 11 in the ATP ranking with 3,280 points: Arthur Fils (No. 10) is 95 points ahead, Taylor Fritz (No. 12) is 450 behind. In 2025, at the top-level tournaments followed by the site, he recorded 38 wins and 11 defeats, with two titles. In his last 30 matches he has won 24 and lost 6; in the last ten, 7 wins and 3 defeats.

2026 has had its ups and downs. At Wimbledon he reached the semi-finals: in the round of 16 he beat Roman Safiullin 7-6(6) 6-3 3-6 6-3, in the quarter-finals Felix Auger Aliassime in five sets (7-6(10) 3-6 6-3 6-7(4) 7-6(4)), then he was stopped by Jannik Sinner 6-4 6-4 6-4. After the grass came a third-round exit in Cincinnati, lost to Thiago Agustin Tirante 2-6 6-4 6-4, and a first-round exit at the US Open against Mariano Navone. That is why the Beijing success carries weight.

The record of the last five years, again at the tournaments followed by the site, also says a lot. From 2021 to 2025 Djokovic played 200 matches and won 171, or 86%. He won 16 titles and reached 23 finals. The peak is 2023 with 46 wins and 5 defeats and six titles. On hard courts, the surface in Beijing, his five-year record is 70 wins and 13 defeats.

And De Minaur? The Australian, 27, reached the final after two comebacks, against Halys and against Rublev. In 2025 he finished with 50 wins and 20 defeats and one title. Over 2021-2025 he won 167 of 261 matches (64%), with 7 titles and 12 finals. His run in China is worth 330 points for the final. A year ago, in Beijing, he stopped in the semi-final.

In numbers, the tournament was intense. The draw had 32 players from 19 nations, with Argentina the most represented with five. There were 31 matches played, with 13 tie-breaks and 11 matches that went to a deciding set. The match with the most games was Rublev-Griekspoor, 6-4 5-7 7-6(6), with 35 games in total. The only set finished 6-0 was Zverev's against Shang in the round of 16.

The list of champions adds a heavyweight name: in 2025 Jannik Sinner won, beating Learner Tien 6-2 6-2 in the final. Before him, in 2024, Carlos Alcaraz had beaten Sinner 6-7(6) 6-4 7-6(3), and in 2023 Sinner had beaten Daniil Medvedev 7-6(2) 7-6(2). Djokovic therefore follows Sinner, who won here in 2023 and 2025. The 500 points from the 2025 title expire with this edition, and Djokovic takes home just as many.

What now? Djokovic has 250 points to defend over the next six weeks: he earned them in 2025 by winning the Athens 250. De Minaur has 400. In the live ranking the Serb is eleventh; Frances Tiafoe, ninth, has 125 points more than him. Another good result would be enough to get close to the top 10: the numbers say the chase is on.