The Asian hard courts swing is the last part of WTA Tour season, emerging the final shape of the year's rankings and heaten up with the competition to get into November's WTA Finals in Riyadh. The swing starts with Korea Open Tennis Championships - the WTA 500 event held on outdoor hardcourts in Seoul.
The field is absolutely stacked, as for the mid-September WTA 500, featuring five top 20 players and the last of 8 seeds being ranked 34th in the WTA list. Here is the breakdown of main draw released on Saturday with the statistical analysis of what we can expect from the action in Korea next week.
Swiatek's WTA 500 titles drought
The world number two Iga Swiatek is an absolute star of this event, playing in Seoul for the first time. The Pole comes there after relatively successful summer, when she followed her Wimbledon championship run by winning the first title on hard courts since March 2024 with a victory in Cincinnati. Swiatek will seek for ending up the drought of WTA 500 titles, that dates back till April 2023 when she won in Stuttgart for the last time in the event of this grade. The last WTA 500 title on hard courts happened in February 2023, so it's more than 2.5 years right now. The US Open was expected to be a close battle between her and Aryna Sabalenka considering the small gap in WTA Race before the last Grand Slam of a year, although Swiatek suffered a loss to Amanda Anisimova in quarterfinals. This with addition of Sabalenka's title distanced Swiatek from chasing the world number one spot this year, however she can bring 500 points to her tally and get some confidence back before the WTA 1000 events in Beijing and Wuhan.
The task is not going to be straightforward, as Swiatek's quarter is really stacked. The Pole can meet either Sorana Cirstea or Lin Zhu after getting bye in opening round. Cirstea has recently won the WTA 250 title in Cleveland and was in round of 16 in Cincinnati, getting defeated by Swiatek in straight sets there. Zhu is building back her ranking after struggling with injuries and managed to get into the round of 16 in Montreal last month.
Star-packed top quarter
The top quarter contains another seed in person of Emma Raducanu. The 8th seed Brit sets up one of the most interesting clashes of first round against the top 50 player Jacqueline Cristian. Barbora Krejcikova is also there as the potential opponent of Raducanu or Cristian in second round. The Czech is already back into her good form after losing a couple of months due to injuries, winning 7 out of 10 matches played on hard including the run into quarterfinals in New York. Interestingly, Krejcikova still has room for improvement in her serve consistency. In 10 matches played on hard courts this year, as the Czech records 6.8 double faults on average (0.6 per game). Considering how poor is the line-up of the tournament with same grade in Guadalajara this week, all the names from the top quarters clashing against each other look really impressive, promising the great action from the first rounds in Seoul.
Tauson as a contender
Third seed Clara Tauson leads the second quarter in top half. The world number 12th plays her best season in career, although last few weeks were not as successful. Tauson made a deep run in Montreal making into semifinals, but got eliminated in just second match in Cincinnati and suffered an upset from Alexandra Eala in opening round of US Open. Despite this, the Dane - winner from Auckland at start of the season and finalist of WTA 1000 in Dubai in February, is the best serving player in Seoul's field. Tauson scores 6.5 aces on average per match on hard courts this season, wins 71.6% of first serve points (10th best in whole WTA), saves breakpoint in the rate of 63.7% (7th best) and is efficient in terms of translating her game into winning matches. That makes the whole top half of the draw even more stacked, as Tauson can be the potential Swiatek's opponent in semifinals. She will face Ashlyn Krueger or Eva Lys in second round, while her quarter contains also the 7th seed Sofia Kenin or one of the most promising youngsters - Maya Joint.
Capabilities vs inconsistencies in third quarter
Daria Kasatkina and Diana Shnaider lead the third quarter as 4th and 5th seeds. Kasatkina is playing a disappointing season so far, winning less than half of matches on all surfaces (19-20) and just 12 out of 23 on hard, getting just into one quarterfinal in Adelaide in January. Interestingly, Kasatkina is one of the best returning players in whole WTA - 48.8% return games is 4th best record on hard courts this year, 60.8% of 2nd serve points is 3rd best of all. This does not translate into satisfying results from the consistent member of world's top 10. Shnaider is the recent WTA 500 champion from Monterrey, but consistency is a liability for the Russian. Monterrey was the only highlight of her season on hard courts, as her record is just 11-11. She got also trapped by the curse of the pre-Grand Slam champions, quickly getting eliminated in US Open, losing to Laura Siegemund in opening round.
TItle defense and race for the WTA finals in bottom quarter
Ekaterina Alexandrova is the second top seed, leading the bottom half in a quarter which looks much more formidable than the top one. The Russian will look forward to gain a hefty amount of points while being ranked 10th in WTA Race, however being 880 points down the 8th spot which qualifies for WTA Finals. The Russian is in stable form this year, winning 17 out of 28 matches on hard courts and was recently the runner-up of WTA 500 in Monterrey, following that with a second week appearance in New York. Alexandrova played impressive three matches in US Open, but got stopped by Swiatek in round of 16. The other seed from her quarter is Beatriz Haddad Maia. The Brazilian is the title holder from last year and comes to Seoul under pressure of defending 500 points. It's quite unlikely considering her very poor form this year (7-16 on hard courts and 15-25 in general) and her commitment in the tournament in Sao Paulo where she got eliminated in quarterfinals on Friday. It's not much time to regroup before the travel to Asia, however this quarter contains two Korean wild cards - Dayeon Back (WTA #307) playing against Haddad Maia in first round and Yeonwoo Ku (WTA #333). The latter faces Lois Boisson who tries to get familiar with hard courts. The French has never won the professional match on WTA Tour level in her career so far (!), focusing just on grinding the clay courts although making the most of it - remembering her run into semis in Roland Garros and first career's title in Hamburg in July.
You can get the full overview of top 10 players in Seoul's draw related to performance on hard courts in 2025 calculated by our metrics. Swiatek is clearly the dominant contender. The heatmap shows how challenging is top quarter, as 4 of the top 8 names sorted by the overall TennisRatio Power Index are placed in this section of a draw together. Don't forget to follow the updates reviews and analysis of the Korea Open on TennisRatio during the upcoming week.
