Founded in 2004 and staged at the National Tennis Center in Beijing, the China Open grew from a modest combined event into the structural centerpiece of the autumn Asian hard-court swing. It occupies the calendar from late September into mid-October on outdoor hard courts — the same surface family as its regional neighbors, the Shanghai Masters, the Wuhan Open and the smaller Ningbo Open. The signature transformation came in 2009, when the women's draw was elevated to the top tier and the prize purse swelled, turning Beijing into the swing's marquee combined-tour stop.
What sets the venue apart is scale. The National Tennis Center's showcourt — the Diamond Court, with its lotus-petal seating bowl — is among the largest dedicated tennis arenas built for an annual event outside the Slams, and the combined ATP-WTA format packs both fields into one ten-day window. The courts play medium-paced and true, rewarding flat ball-strikers and first-strike servers over grinders, a profile that separates it from the slower, higher-bouncing hard courts elsewhere on tour.
The women's draw carries the heavier honor roll. Amanda Anisimova won the 2025 title over Linda Noskova, recovering after dropping the second set to take it 6-0, 2-6, 6-2. The year before, Coco Gauff beat Karolina Muchova 6-1, 6-3 for the 2024 crown, and in 2023 Iga Swiatek took the title past Liudmila Samsonova 6-2, 6-2 — three straight champions from the WTA's upper tier, underscoring how decisively the event sorts the contenders.
Heading into the 2026 edition, Beijing remains the highest-billed stop of the China block, the gateway through which the field funnels toward Shanghai and the year-end run. The men's title sits at the 500 level, the women's at 1000, giving the combined fortnight an asymmetry that still draws the sport's deepest rosters east each autumn.