Players competing at this week’s ATP Challenger Tour event in Shenzhen, China, stepped away from the court for a pair of off-site activities.

On Tuesday, Enrique Lopez-Perez of Spain joined WTA player Jovana Jaksic in visiting a Tsing Dynasty villa named Wanshi Habitat. They explored where the ancestors of Shenzhen citizens used to live and learned about Hakka culture and what the lifestyle entailed. They then delighted the local audience by hitting a few balls in a game of mini-tennis.

Enrique Lopez-Perez helps launch the #ATPChallenger event in Shenzhen. The Spaniard visited a Tsing Dynasty villa named Wanshi Habitat. pic.twitter.com/2mAhAhoNn9

— ATP Challenger Tour (@ATPChallenger) March 14, 2017

Also during the week, Thai brothers Sanchai Ratiwatana and Sonchat Ratiwatana tested their talents in a calligraphy classroom at the nearby Grandale International Tennis Academy. ‘Shenzhen Pingshan’ is the name of the tournament venue and it is the Chinese character they learned to write. After discovering the basic skills on holding a brush pen, the all-time winningest doubles team in Challenger history (42 titles) focused on writing the characters according to the teacher’s presentation.

The fourth annual Pingshan Open continues on Saturday, with Yuki Bhambri taking on Yuichi Sugita in one semi-final and Luca Vanni battling 2017 match wins leader Blaz Kavcic in the second.

• Three new faces – No. 3 seed Stan Wawrinka, No. 17 seed Jack Sock and No. 21 seed Pablo Carreno Busta join four-time champion and No. 9 seed Roger Federer in the BNP Paribas Open semi-finals on Saturday. Federer has cruised into his 10th Indian Wells semi-final without losing a set or serve while the trio of first-time semi-finalists each have lost at least one set.

• In the opening match, Wawrinka brings a 2-0 head-to-head record against Carreno Busta, who is making his ATP Masters 1000 semi-final debut. Wawrinka won both previous meetings on clay in 2013 and last year. The 25-year-old Spaniard saved two match points in his three-set quarter-final win over No. 27 seed Pablo Cuevas. Carreno Busta is trying to become the sixth different Spaniard to reach the final in the tournament’s 42-year history. Rafael Nadal is the last Spanish champion in 2013. If Carreno Busta advances to the biggest final of his career, he will have to earn his first Top 10 win. He is 0-14, having won three of 36 sets. Wawrinka, who won his last two matches in a third-set tie-break, is making his ninth ATP Masters 1000 semi-final showing (3-5) and he’s trying to reach his fourth final (1-2), the first in the U.S.

• In the second match, Federer takes a 2-0 head-to-head record against Sock. Federer won both meetings in straight sets in 2015, here in the 4R and in the semi-finals of his hometown tournament in Basel. The 35-year-old Swiss superstar is trying to reach his seventh Indian Wells final (4-2) and he is 6-3 in semi-final matches. He is two match wins away from claiming his record-tying fifth Indian Wells title and 90th of his career. Federer has held all 27 service games (saving one break point) and on Thursday he defeated Nadal for the third straight time for the first time in their 36-match rivalry. He is 5-0 vs. Top 10 opponents this season, his best showing to start the year since 2004 when he went 18-0 and finished No. 1. Sock is the first American to reach the semi-finals here since John Isner in 2014 and he is coming off the biggest win of his career over No. 5-ranked Kei Nishikori on Friday. All four wins en route to the semi-finals have come in three sets. He is attempting to earn back-to-back Top 10 tournament wins for the first time in his career and become the first American to reach the Indian Wells final since Isner in 2012 (l. to Federer).

• With Federer in the semi-finals, at least one member of the Big Four (Murray, Djokovic, Nadal, Federer) has played in the semis of 37 straight ATP Masters 1000s and 72 of the last 73. The last ATP Masters 1000 semi-final without a Big Four member was 2012 Paris-Bercy with David Ferrer, Jerzy Janowicz, Gilles Simon and Michael Llodra reached the semis. Three of the Big Four (except Murray) have accounted for 12 of the past 13 titles going back to 2004 when Federer captured the first of his four titles (2004-06, 2012). Overall a Top 5 player in the Emirates ATP Rankings has lifted the champion’s trophy in 15 of the past 16 years, except 2010 when No. 26 Ivan Ljubicic won the title.

Watch your favourite players work on their games by taking in a live stream at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.

Eighth seeds Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo are through to their first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 final as a team after edging fourth seeds Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares 3-6, 7-5, 10-5 in the BNP Paribas Open semi-finals on Friday.

The Polish/Brazilian duo rallied from a 2-4 deficit in the second set, winning five of the next six games to force a Match Tie-break, which they controlled from the start to seal victory in one hour and 33 minutes.

Kubot and Melo joined forces full-time at the start of 2017. They have won two titles together before, capturing back-to-back Vienna crowns in 2015 and 2016.

In Saturday’s final, they will face sixth seeds Raven Klaasen and Rajeev Ram, who defeated Gilles Muller and Sam Querrey in the other semi-final on Thursday evening.

Murray and Soares, who finished as the No. 1 duo in the Emirates ATP Doubles Team Rankings last year, were looking to win their second successive ATP World Tour title, after coming into Indian Wells on the back of victory in Acapulco.

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The late ‘90s had the Backstreet Boys and N’Sync, while the late 2000s had the Jonas Brothers. Could the “Backhand Boys” become this decade’s boy band craze?

Roger Federer released the world debut of himself, Grigor Dimitrov and Tommy Haas taking a second crack at singing “Hard To Say I’m Sorry,” the classic ‘80s song from American rock group Chicago, during an on-court interview at the BNP Paribas Open on Thursday. He then posted the video to his Twitter account shortly after.

The new release is a follow-up to their initial attempt at the track in January. Haas’ father-in-law, world-renowned record producer and musician David Foster, once again accompanied them on piano.

Looking more comfortable as a man band, the trio’s vocal range has improved noticeably over the past two months. They even upped the production value of the new release by including a cameo appearance from Novak Djokovic.

The Swiss maestro returns to a more familiar vocation on Saturday when he plays either Jack Sock or Kei Nishikori for a place in the BNP Paribas Open final.