First round between Emma Raducanu and Karolina Pliskova highlights early WTA action in Madrid

The first WTA 1000 event of the clay-court season will see a first-round match between a resurgent former Grand Slam champion and an ex-world No. 1. The women's draw for the Mutua Madrid Open, which begins Tuesday, was made on Sunday in Madrid, and 2021 US Open champion Emma Raducanu will face Karolina Pliskova in the most notable opening-round match at the Caja Mágica.

The in-form Raducanu, given a wild card, reached her first quarterfinal since the fall of 2022 at the recently-concluded Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart, where she beat Angelique Kerber and Linda Noskova before falling in a high-quality two-set match to world No. 1 Iga Swiatek. Pliskova, meanwhile, had her own resurgence to start 2024, winning 11 straight matches at one stage including her first title in four years in Cluj-Napoca, Romania in February. Since that streak ended against Coco Gauff in Dubai, however, Pliskova is just 1-3.

The projected top-half quarterfinals would seed world No. 1 Swiatek face No. 5 seed Maria Sakkari in a rematch of March's final from the BNP Paribas Open, won by Swiatek 6-4, 6-0; and No. 3 seed Gauff face former champion and No. 8 seed Ons Jabeur. On the bottom half, defending champion and No. 2 seed Aryna Sabalenka could face a rematch with No. 7 seed Marketa Vondrousova, who beat her in three sets this week in Stuttgart, while No. 4 seed and Stuttgart champion Elena Rybakina could face No. 6 seed and Australian Open finalist Zheng Qinwen.

There could be a rematch between Rybakina and Marta Kostyuk, who she beat Sunday in win Stuttgart, in the third round. Kostyuk was unseeded in Stuttgart, but beat three Top 10 players to reach the final, and is the No. 25 seed in Madrid. A round later, Sabalenka could face No. 13 seed Danielle Collins, winner of Miami and Charleston, if seeds hold.

All 32 seeds in the draw receive a first-round bye. Other notable first-round matches include 16-year-old Mirra Andreeva against Taylor Townsend; former Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin against Anna Karolina Schmiedlova; and former Roland Garros semifinal Martina Trevisan against 2017 US Open champion Sloane Stephens, who won five clay-court matches in Rouen, France this week to win her eighth career WTA singles title.

Andreeva, the 2023 WTA Newcomer of the Year, made her breakthrough this week as a 15-year-old qualifier 12 months ago; in the main draw, she beat 2021 US Open finalist Leylah Fernandez, No. 13 seed Beatriz Haddad Maia, and No. 17 seed Magda Linette before losing to eventual champion Sabalenka.

Meanwhile, the anticipated return of two former world No. 1s to the tournament will both start against qualifiers: Caroline Wozniacki, a finalist in Madrid in its first edition at the Caja Mágica in 2009, and Naomi Osaka, who last played in Madrid in 2022. Osaka reached the quarterfinals in Madrid in 2019.

The winner of Wozniacki's match will face No.11 seed Haddad Maia in the second round, while No. 15 seed Liudmila Samsonova, whom Osaka beat in Indian Wells, could await her again should she win her first match. Osaka could be a fourth-round opponent for Gauff, while Wozniacki is in Swiatek's quarter.

Two-time champion Simona Halep had been expected to play in the event as a wild card, but is not in the draw. After the draw was released, Halep released a statement on social media saying that her "body needs a little more time to be ready" to return to top-level tennis. The former world No. 1 played her first match since the 2022 US Open in Miami in March, as the lengthy legal challenge to her four-year doping suspension eventually ended with it being shortened to nine months.

"[It's] tough because I want to be back on tour asap, but experience tells me not to rush. Thank you to [the tournament] who offered me the wild card and to my fans," Halep wrote on X.