The WTA-Only Tournament That Promises Heavy Competition
The Korean Open Tennis Championships will officially commence tomorrow, Monday, September 15th, in Seoul, South Korea. The WTA-exclusive competition is a 500-level event, and concluded the qualifying round today, which saw eight challengers through into the main draw. An additional four wildcards were granted into the main draw, including 2021 US Open Champion, British Emma Raducanu. She is also entering the tournament seeded eighth, while she is currently ranked 34th in the WTA rankings.
The title looks to be a fiercely competitive one; defending champ Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia has returned to reclaim the trophy once again from last year. She’s seeded sixth in the tournament and currently ranked number 27th in the world. However, World Number Two, Iga Świątek of Poland, is also present, and with a newfound love and understanding of hard-court surfaces as of late, given her recent results. She did not play this tournament last year, pulling out at the last minute due to injury, so she is likely set on proving herself. Another who has taken up Swiatek’s fate of last year in the present time is the US Open finalist, American Amanda Anisimova, who simply stated recently that she is saddened to be missing the event this year. Anisimova competed last year and won one match but had to retire from injury in the middle of her second.
The other athletes making up the eight-strong seeding line-up are: Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova is seeded second, Danish Clara Tauson is seeded third, Russian-Australian Daria Kasatkina is seeded fourth, Russian Diana Shnaider is seeded fifth, and American 2020 Australian Open Champion, Sofia Kenin, is seeded seventh. Shnaider has had a fairly favorable hardcourt season with her Monterrey Open win and, excluding her US Open first-round exit to Laura Siegemund, who is also in this tournament, on the other half of Shnaider’s draw, for the time being. Doubles is occurring simultaneously as singles are, and many of the singles players have doubled up to maximize the competition. Haddad Maia and Siegemund are partnered up, and seeded second, even while Czech players Barbora Krejcikova and Kateřina Siniaková, longtime doubles partners in the past, with a total of eight doubles Grand Slams together before they split in 2023, are partnered together again in this tournament. Haddad Maia is the sole top singles seed playing both doubles and singles. Singles matches officially kick off at 1:00 a.m. EST, which would be 2:00 p.m. KST, the local time of the event. Swiatek has a first-round bye and won’t be playing tomorrow, as do Tauson, Alexandrova, and Kasatsina. There are no byes in the doubles draw.
