Rybakina, Gauff set for potential showdown at Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships

The draw for the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships’ prestigious WTA 1000 tournament unfolded on Saturday, setting the stage for an exhilarating journey to the final.

This year’s star-studded line-up features 16 of the world’s top 20 players, including Australian Open champion Elena Rybakina, World No. 5 Coco Gauff, and last year’s history-making Dubai champion Mirra Andreeva.

Taking place at a renovated Dubai Duty Free Tennis Stadium, the 26th edition of the city’s women’s showpiece will run from Sunday to February 24 and boasts six Grand Slam singles winners sharing a collective nine titles between them.

While the top eight seeds all received first-round byes, top seed and World No3 Rybakina – triumphant in Melbourne just a few weeks ago – is on course for a second-round meeting with German Tatjana Maria. On the other half of the draw, No. 2 seed Amanda Anisimova could face two-time Grand Slam winner Barbora Krejcikova – a winner here in 2023 – in the Round of 32, should the latter safely negotiate her first-round tie with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

Rybakina’s half of the draw also features the likes of 2023 US Open champion Gauff (No. 3 seed), World No. 9 Elina Svitolina (No. 7 seed), 2017 French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko (No10 seed), British No1 Emma Raducanu, and rising star Alexandra Eala of the Philippines – who will face Lucky Loser Hailey Baptiste of the US to progress to a second-round tie with 2024 Dubai winner Jasmine Paolini.

Eala, who attended the draw and is sure to attract huge Filipino support when she starts her campaign on Sunday at 7pm on Centre Court.

The Kabayan community will also have the chance to watch Leylah Fernandez, the Canadian of Filipino descent, on Centre Court when she meets No13 seed Liudmila Samsonova earlier in the afternoon.

On the opposite side of the draw, as well as the WTA’s youngest 1000 winner Andreeva and World No6 Jessica Pegula, Greek star Maria Sakkari will follow up her semi-final appearance in Doha last week with an opening round match against No16 seed Iva Jovic. This year’s Dubai tournament marks Jovic’s first appearance in the Middle East, and she is already impressed by what she has seen – which includes plenty of the emirate having taken in the panoramic city views afforded from atop the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa.

“I didn’t get to see a tonne of [Maria] play in Doha, so I’m going to talk to my coach and we’ll do some scouting,” said the 18-year-old American. “It’s never easy playing someone who is going into the week with a lot of confidence and she’s definitely in the match zone, but I’m going to do everything I can. I think I’ve prepared very well. I’ve worked hard for the last couple of weeks going into the start of the year. It’ll be tricky, but that’s what we love.”

The official draw event was led by WTA Supervisor Clare Wood, who was joined by, Ramesh Cidambi, Managing Director, Dubai Duty Free and Chair of the Tournament Organising Committee; Salah Tahlak, Deputy Managing Director, Dubai Duty Free, and Tournament Director of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships; WTA referee Carlos Ramos; and Sinead El Sibai, Senior Vice President – Marketing Dubai Duty Free.

“The start of WTA week is always exciting for us because it gives us an opportunity to showcase some of the improvements that we have done in the past year,” said Cidambi, who confirmed a new Court One with a 2,000-seat capacity, as well as an expanded Tennis Village.

“This is phase one of the upgrade we are doing to the site and as soon as this tournament is over, we will start working on the expansion of the Centre Court to add another 2,500 seats and have a 7,500 capacity Centre Court.”

Tahlak announced the four wildcards during the draw, with Turkish talent Zeynep Sonmez being joined by Sara Bejlek of Czech Republic, New Zealand’s Lulu Sun, and Janice Tjen of Indonesia. In a quirk of the draw, Sonmez will face Bejlek for a place in the second round, with the match scheduled for Centre Court immediately after Eala versus Baptiste.