New Delhi: The season-ending Shanghai Masters has always been a lucrative event on the world tennis map.
But this year the tournament organisers are struggling to keep it lucrative for both the fans and the advertisers.
The tournament in which the top eight ranked men's player take part has seen the cream of men's tennis withdraw for one reason or the other.
Andre Agassi and Rafael Nadal have withdrawn from the prestigious event, joining Andy Roddick, Lleyton Hewitt and Marat Safin who had pulled out of the season-ending tournament, mainly due to injuries.
After his withdrawal Rafael Nadal said, "I want to apologise to the players but especially the Spanish press because they come here and the fans from Spain who've come here too. I want to say thank you very much to the organisers of the tournament and everybody, because I think it's very good here and I feel very good in China always."
Agassi was keen to do well after the US Open final loss to Federer in August and up against Russia's Nikolay Davydenko, he made a confident start.
But Davydenko was no pushover and Agassi soon realised that inspite of support from wife Steffi Graf with the former winning 6-4, 6-2.
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