Week in Preview: The race to the WTA Finals heats up, while the ATP debuts in Florence and Gijon, Spain

WATCH: After defeating Iga Swiatek to win on home soil in Ostrava, Barbora Krejcikova will be the top seed in Cluj-Napoca.

The WTA’s season wraps up in Fort Worth during the first week of November. The ATP’s does the same two weeks later in Turin. You can see the difference in urgency this week, as the top women return to the U.S. for a 500-level event in San Diego, while many of the big names on the men’s side get a week of rest before they make a final push in Vienna, Basel and Paris-Bercy later this month.

San Diego Open (WTA)

• San Diego
• WTA 500; $757,900
• Hard court
• Draw is here

The demise of the Asian swing has brought about the rise of a new U.S swing in the fall. The latest addition is the San Diego Open, as the women return to this tennis hotbed for the first time since 2013. The tournament benefits from its proximity to the tour’s year-end championships; as of now, only two women, Iga Swiatek and Ons Jabeur, have locked up spots in Forth Worth. That means the last six positions are still up for grabs. That, in turn, means there’s a lot at stake, and a lot of highly-ranked players in action, in San Diego.

Seven of the tour’s Top 10 will be here, including Swiatek, Paula Badosa, Aryna Sabalenka, Jessica Pegula, Maria Sakkari, Coco Gauff, Caroline Garcia, and Daria Kasatkina.

If the race ended today, Pegula, Gauff, Garcia, Kasatkina, and Sabalenka would qualify. But there are others in San Diego who are looking to pick up enough points to knock them out, including Badosa, Sakkari, Madison Keys, Danielle Collins, Liudmila Samsonova, and Elena Rybakina. We’ll see where we stand when the dust settles again next Sunday

First-round matches to watch

Rybakina vs. Garbiñe Muguruza (the winner plays Swiatek)

Samsonova vs. Bianca Andreescu

Kasatkina vs. Leylah Fernandez

Veronika Kudermetova vs. Sloane Stephens

Garcia vs. Collins

Unicredit Firenze Open (ATP)

• Florence, Italy
• $700,000; ATP 250
• Hard court
• Draw is here

A tournament in Florence that isn’t played outdoors, on red clay courts, in the shadow of a pile of Renaissance architecture? The idea seems like sacrilege—or at least a lost opportunity for another beautiful tennis setting.

Whatever the surface or the setting, the draw has its share of well-known names and local favorites. Felix Auger-Aliassime is the top seed, followed by Italy’s own Lorenzo Musetti and Matteo Berrettini. Perhaps more surprisingly, there’s also a healthy American contingent: Jenson Brooksby, Brandon Nakashima, J.J. Wolf, and Mackenzie McDonald.

Transylvania Open (WTA)

• Cluj-Napoca, Romania
• $251,750; WTA 250
• Indoor hard court
• Draw is here

Barbora Krejcikova headlines this 250—hopefully she’s ready. The Czech is coming off one of the biggest, and probably most exhausting, wins of her career, over Swiatek in Ostrava on Sunday. Also in the field are Anhelina Kalinina, Marta Kostyuk, and Wimbledon quarterfinalist Jule Niemeier.

Gijon Open (ATP)

• Gijon, Spain
• $750,000; ATP 250
• Indoor hard court
• Draw is here

The tours travel to half a dozen new locales this fall, and one of them is Gijon, on Spain’s northern coast. The top seed at this 250 is Andrey Rublev, followed by two home-country veterans, Pablo Carreño Busta and Roberto Bautista Agut.

First-round matches to watch:

Andy Murray vs. Alejandro Davidovich Fokina

Dominic Thiem vs. Joao Sousa

Sebastian Korda vs. Jaume Munar