No. 1 Chinese player Bu defeated in first round, leaving no Chinese men in the draw

Top Chinese player Yunchaokete Bu was ousted by No. 3 seed Alex De Minaur 6-4, 6-0 on Friday, Sept. 26, in the first round of the 2025 China Open. Bu, ranked World No. 89, was one of three Chinese men’s wild cards in the draw, but none advanced to the second round.

Bu entered the match with high hopes after a breakthrough run at last year’s China Open, when he became the first, and still only, Chinese player to reach the semifinals. He upset then–No. 4 seed Andrey Rublev and then–No. 6 seed Lorenzo Musetti before falling to top seed Jannik Sinner.

“Of course, I came in with high expectations,” Bu said of this year’s tournament. “I wanted to play better, especially in front of the home crowd… Today it wasn’t a good result under stress.”

With the Diamond Court crowd firmly behind him, Bu started brightly. He held serve at love in the first and third games for a 2-1 lead and earned a break point in the fourth. De Minaur, however, steadied at deuce and fired two aces on the lines to escape. In the very next game, the Australian broke Bu’s serve to go up 3-2 and then closed out the opening set 6-4.

“I was broken out of nowhere,” Bu said. “After that, my mindset was kind of disrupted and the level dropped pretty fast.”

De Minaur seized full control in the second set, breaking Bu immediately and then again in a tense, 14-point third game. He closed out the match with a 6-0 set, capitalizing on Bu’s 17 unforced errors compared to his own six.

“It was errors, it was mistakes coming out of nowhere,” Bu said. “All of a sudden it was hard for me to accept and digest it. It was emotional control.”

De Minaur now leads the ATP Tour with 32 hard-court victories this season and ranks fourth in total wins (44). He is now 3-0 against Bu. Their previous two meetings came at the Miami Open and the Mubadala Citi DC Open. The Australian will face lucky loser Arthur Rinderknech in the second round.

— Reporting by Coby Spratte