The WTA 500
Zhengzhou Open has confirmed the WTA Entry List for the final WTA 500-level
tournament of the 2023 season.
Following the WTA 1000 Beijing Open, Zhengzhou
will be the Chinese city to host the last WTA 500-level event of the year.
With all
four Grand Slams and all WTA 1000 tournaments already played (the last one
being the week before in Beijing), the Zhengzhou tournament will distribute the
most points until the WTA Finals in Cancún, where the top eight players of the
year will compete. This makes it a crucial event for players contending for a
spot at the Finals.
Featuring
the world's best female tennis players, the tournament will include six players
from the top 10 and ten from the top 15, competing in a 32-player draw,
ensuring a high level of tennis.
The top
contenders for the title will be
Elena Rybakina,
Marketa Vondrousova, Ons
Jabeur, and
Karolina Muchova, who are the top four seeds. This means that four
out of the seven Grand Slam finalists during the year will be participating,
with the top 3 players Sabalenka, Swiatek, and Coco Gauff being absent.
Local hope
will undoubtedly rest on Qinwen Zheng, a 20-year-old who recently reached the
quarterfinals of the US Open and has garnered excitement among the local fans.
Zhengzhou
has seen rapid growth as a tournament. It started as an ITF event in 2014 and,
after three editions, progressed to a WTA 125k event in 2017. In 2019, it made
the significant leap to become a WTA 500 tournament, attracting many more top
players. In that year, Karolina Pliskova, who was ranked World No. 2 at the
time, claimed the title.
Here is the
list of the players who will compete in the tournament:
Seed | Name | Entry ranking |
1 | Elena Rybakna | 4 |
2 | Marketa Vondrousova | 6 |
3 | Ons Jabeur | 7 |
4 | Karolina Muchova | 8 |
5 | Maria Sakkari | 9 |
6 | Caroline Garcia | 10 |
7 | Madison Keys | 11 |
| Daria Kasatkina | 12 |
| Barbora Krejcikova | 13 |
| Belinda Bencic | 15 |
| Liudmila Samsonova | 17 |
| Veronika Kudermetova | 18 |
| Donna Vekic | 21 |
| Qinwen Zheng | 22 |
| Magda Linette | 24 |
| Sorana Cirstea | 26 |
| Jennifer Brady | (PR) |
| (WC) Top 20 | |
| (WC) Top 20 | |
| (WC) | |
| (WC) | |
| (Q) | |
| (Q) | |
| (Q) | |
| (Q) | |
| (Q) | |
| (Q) | |
| (SE) | |