No. 2 seed Andy Murray, No. 3 seed Stan Wawrinka and No. 4 seed Rafael Nadal, along with Chinese No. 1 Di Wu, feature at the Shanghai Rolex Masters on Wednesday.

Play on Stadium begins with Wawrinka taking on 21-year-old qualifier Kyle Edmund, who enters at a career-high No. 48 in the Emirates ATP Rankings. The #NextGen star lost to Murray in the Beijing quarter-finals on Friday before winning matches on Saturday, Sunday and Monday in Shanghai. Edmund recently reached the fourth round at the US Open, falling to Novak Djokovic before the Serbian star was beaten by Wawrinka in a four-set final.

In the second match, Wu, the only Chinese player to win an ATP Challenger Tour singles title, faces 2014 Shanghai finalist Gilles Simon for a spot in the third round. The wild card Wu defeated No. 16 seed Pablo Cuevas for his second ATP World Tour win on Sunday, surviving a back-and-forth final set that featured 10 service breaks before the tiebreaker. Later on Stadium, Nadal takes a 5-0 FedEx ATP Head 2 Head record into his meeting with Viktor Troicki. 

Murray caps the Stadium schedule against American Steve Johnson in a rematch of the 2015 Shanghai second round. The Brit won 6-2, 6-4, but Johnson served with a 4-3 third-set lead when he met Murray again in the Rio Olympics quarter-finals. Murray broke back and went on to win his second gold medal. Also among his 40 titles are four won in China: 2010 and 2011 Shanghai Rolex Masters, 2014 Shenzhen Open and 2016 China Open.

Johnson and Edmund are seeking their biggest wins on Wednesday, as are Paolo Lorenzi against World No. 6 Milos Raonic and qualifier Taylor Fritz against World No. 19 Roberto Bautista Agut. Lorenzi is 0-14 lifetime versus Top 10 opponents, while Fritz is 0-7 against Top 20 players. Also on Union Pay 3, Tomas Berdych could inch within 245 points of Dominic Thiem in the Emirates ATP Race to London by beating Marcel Granollers. Thiem is No. 8 in the race, with only the Top 8 players ensured a berth at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals. 

Also trying to track Thiem down are No. 11 seed David Goffin, No. 12 seed Nick Kyrgios and No. 13 seed Lucas Pouille, who all play on Grandstand. Kyrgios defeated Goffin in the Tokyo final on Sunday, but still trails the Belgian by 50 race points. The Emirates ATP Doubles Race to London is also heating up with first-and second-round matches on Courts 4, 5 and 6. As in the singles race, four spots remain in doubles at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals. Among the contenders in action Wednesday are Raven Klaasen/Rajeev Ram, Treat Huey/Max Mirnyi and Henri Kontinen/John Peers, who are sixth, seventh and eighth in the race respectively.

Looking ahead, Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares would pass Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut, the No. 1 team in the race, by winning their Shanghai quarter-final on Friday. Murray and Soares have yet to play a point this week after receiving a first-round bye and a second-round walkover. Herbert and Mahut, who now lead Murray and Soares by five race points, are not in the Shanghai Rolex Masters field this week. In addition, Murray would reclaim the No. 1 doubles ranking from Mahut individually if he and Soares reach the Shanghai final.

Even though he’s had an outstanding year on the doubles court, Ivan Dodig still has plenty of motivation for big results in singles.

The 31-year-old Croatian is competing at this week’s $125,000 ATP Challenger Tour event in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Dodig was a late entry into the tournament and played through the qualifying draw as a result. After advancing into the main draw, he won his first-round match on Monday over Aldin Setkic of Bosnia.

“I’m coming back from a back injury and feeling better now,” said Dodig. “I decided to come and play here at the last minute, but I think it was a good decision.”

Currently ranked No. 92 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, Dodig had a solid start to the season that included a quarter-final showing at the 2016 BMW Open by FWU AG and a runner-up finish at the $75,000 Challenger this January in Canberra, Australia. In doubles, he and Marcelo Melo are a likely bet to qualify for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals after winning titles at the Rogers Cup and Western & Southern Open.

Although Dodig admitted he can be difficult to balance a top doubles career with his singles, he is determined to continue the juggling act.

“It’s physically tough and mentally tiring because you play over 100 matches in a year doing both singles and doubles. But for the next two years, I want to be in the Top 100 [of the Emirates ATP Rankings] for singles and Top 5 for doubles,” said Dodig. “I love tennis and want to play as much as I can, so I’ll mostly concentrate on doubles in a couple of years so I can play for longer.”

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Dodig is hoping for a strong end to his year in singles that’s similar to what he produced last year. The Croatian won three Challengers in three months, prevailing at French Challengers in St. Remy and Brest before winning another title in Andria, Italy. Making his first appearance in Tashkent since reaching the semi-finals in 2012, Dodig said he knows he’ll have to play his best tennis to be the last man standing on Sunday.

“I wanted to come back here because this tournament is one of the toughest Challengers. It’s like an ATP World Tour event here,” said Dodig. “I hope to do well here again and make it work for me once again.”

By every measure, Stan Wawrinka has enjoyed one of his best seasons. He’s won four tour-level titles, tying his career-best mark. He also captured his third Grand Slam tournament title when he beat Novak Djokovic during the US Open final last month.

So what, if anything, could Wawrinka possibly wish for in the year ahead? The return of the one thing – or person, rather – who’s been missing during the second half of the season: Wawrinka’s countryman, Roger Federer.

When asked what his two wishes for 2017 would be, Wawrinka said, “For tennis in general, that Roger will be back at the top with no injury. I think it’s always good for everybody when he’s playing. And for myself, I don’t have any – I’m working every day to try to make the best I can with my tennis career, so we’ll see how I can play next year.”

Wawrinka can do little about his first wish; Federer plans to return to the ATP World Tour in 2017 after a full recuperation from his knee injury. But Wawrinka can and will try to improve his tennis career. This week, he’s the third seed at the Shanghai Rolex Masters, the season’s eighth and penultimate ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament. Wawrinka has already qualified for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, but he could achieve a career-best fifth title this week and take his second career Masters 1000 title (Monte-Carlo 2014).

“Always enjoy coming back… The tournament is doing an amazing job for the players, not only on-site but also off-site, if we want to discover the city, if we want to go to nice restaurant,” he said. “So I always enjoy my time here.”

The Swiss has played at the Shanghai Rolex Masters seven times and has reached the quarter-finals twice. He lost to Rafael Nadal in both 2013 and 2015. Wawrinka knows this year’s field will be tough as well.

“It’s a Masters 1000, a strong draw like always, with almost everybody playing, so we need to start well,” Wawrinka said. “So far I’m quite happy with the practice.”

Wawrinka opens against British qualifier Kyle Edmund on Wednesday. The 21-year-old #NextGen star broke into the Top 50 of the Emirates ATP Rankings on Monday, climbing six spots following a quarter-final run at the China Open (l. to Murray).

It’s the little things – playing injury-free, earning a living through tennis – that Juan Martin del Potro appreciates most these days.

Of course, the Argentine wishes he would have beaten Belgian David Goffin in the first round of the Shanghai Rolex Masters on Tuesday. DelPo had his chances, too – he led by set and a break. But tennis is tennis, and Goffin, a Tokyo finalist on Sunday (l. to Kyrgios), came back on the Comeback King of 2016.

“He started to return much better in the second and in the third set,” del Potro said of Goffin, who won 50 per cent of his return points in the second and third sets after winning exactly nine per cent (2/22) in the first set. “Then I tried to make winners more often but I made mistakes. At the end of the match, I made mistakes with my forehand in important moments, and I think he took all the chances to win the match.”

Then del Potro, as he’s done after most of his matches this season, talked about what it’s been like to play tennis after enduring four wrist surgeries during the past six years.

“It has been a great season. Trying to do a good comeback after many injuries. This is just a match. I’m so glad to be playing in this tournament,” said del Potro, who made his last Shanghai appearance in 2013, when he lost to Novak Djokovic in the final.

His comeback trail doesn’t end in Shanghai, though. Del Potro plans to wrap up his season by playing two more ATP World Tour tournaments, the If Stockholm Open, 17-23 Oct., and the Swiss Indoors Basel, 24-30 Oct.

He’d like to ascend even further in the Emirates ATP Rankings and earn vital momentum for next season. Since 4 Jan., del Potro has hiked 527 spots in the Emirates ATP Rankings to No. 63.

“Hopefully I can be better during the next two tournaments,” he said. “We have great tournaments to play and I’m still having a chance to go up in the rankings and be in better position for the next season.”

He has simple plans for 2017: Continue to improve his ranking and be happy.

“It’s not easy when you travel a lot and you spend time away from home and you cannot share moments with your friends, family,” he said. “But I’m so happy doing this. I missed it a lot when I was injured, and I’m looking forward to be on tour for [many] more years.”