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The 2024 WTA Qatar Open is the very first 1000-level event of the season. Of course, this is the second most prestigious tier in professional tennis behind only Grand Slam events. Therefore, there is plenty of excitement building for this tournament.
As for what the WTA Qatar Open has to offer, I will be covering all of the key angles here. This includes a closer look at the draw while identifying top seeds, qualifiers, wildcards, and possible winners. Additionally, I’ll be looking at the schedule to let you know what’s coming up and on what days.
That said, with the WTA Qatar Open 2024 starting on Sunday, February 11th, there’s no time to waste for this preview! So let’s get right into the key details now.
WTA Qatar Open 2024 – key tournament details
Contents
Given that this is a 1000-level tournament, as you’d expect, the world’s best players are heading to Qatar in search of a title. This goes without saying, and I’ll provide details on the top players, what their chances are in this tournament, and more a little later.
But for now, let me share some key facts about this tournament to paint a picture of just how large and prestigious it is.
Draw size
As is the case for these larger events, the draw size for the WTA Qatar Open is larger than most. For the singles event, a grand total of 56 players are set to compete in the main draw, and this number is 28 for the doubles draw (28 pairings). Because of that, individuals are required to win six straight matches if they start in round one, and five straight matches if they start in round two.
Prize money
The prize money is another key detail that tennis fans like to look at for these larger events. And I can confirm that the prize money for the WTA Qatar Open is more than $3 million in total. Or to give you an exact number, the total prize pool is $3,211,715. This is the money that is shared between all players in the tournament.
However, the prize money for the player who wins the 2024 WTA Qatar Open is $523,485. We can all agree that this is a hefty payday!
Tournament schedule
Now that we’ve taken care of the draw size and prize money, let’s address the tournament schedule. As noted earlier, the main draw for the WTA Qatar Open begins on Sunday, February 11th. This is when the first-round matches are set to commence.
Due to the way that the draw is structured this year, many seeded players feature in the schedule for day one. And from here, the WTA Qatar Open follows a progressive knockout format until we come to finals day, which is Sunday, February 18th.
Recent champions
For those of you who are interested, we’ve got a whole range of tennis predictions today that relate to the 2024 Qatar Open. You can check these out whenever you like, especially since we have predictions covering matches on every day of the tournament. Naturally, some of the recent winners feature in these predictions, too.
Starting with the recent singles champion, that player is the world number one, Iga Swiatek. She won the WTA Qatar Open in 2023, and she’s back to defend her title this year. As for the doubles event, the defending champions are Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula, both of whom are involved in the singles event this year.
2024 WTA Qatar Open – a breakdown of the draw
Now that you have all of the key knowledge relating to the event as a whole, let’s take a deeper dive into the specifics of the 2024 tournament. Of course, most of the details here relate to the draw, as well as the individual players who make up the main draw for 2024.
On that note, let me share these details now.
Top seeds
Of the 56 players involved in the draw this year, 16 of them are seeds. As you probably know, if you watch plenty of tennis, these seeds make up some of the highest-ranked players on the WTA Tour. However, to keep things as relevant as possible, let me focus on the top 8 seeds – split into the top and bottom halves:
Top half
- Seed 1 – Iga Swiatek
- Seed 4 – Ons Jabeur
- Seed 7 – Maria Sakkari
- Seed 8 – Jelena Ostapenko
Bottom half
- Seed 2 – Coco Gauff
- Seed 3 – Elena Rybakina
- Seed 5 – Qinwen Zheng
- Seed 6 – Marketa Vondrousova
Wildcards & qualifiers
Besides direct main draw entrants, you’ll notice that many spaces in the draw of the WTA Qatar Open are filled by qualifiers and wildcards. So let me also list these players before things begin:
Wildcards
- Emma Raducanu
- Zeynep Somnez
- Anna Kalinskaya
- Paula Badosa
Qualifiers
- Danielle Collins
- Greet Minnen
- Ashlyn Krueger
- Nao Hibino
- Bernarda Pera
- Magdalena Frech
- Diana Shnaider
- Erika Andreeva
My WTA Qatar Open predictions
The last thing I wish to cover in my 2024 WTA Qatar Open preview is a few predictions for how the event could unfold this year. To that end, I’ve chosen to come up with two separate predictions for a possible tournament winner. The first of these is an outright prediction based on a ‘likely winner’, and the second is an outright prediction based on an ‘unexpected winner’.
Prediction one – Elena Rybakina
You may have noticed that Elena Rybakina is involved in the finals of the Abu Dhabi Open on February 11th. So clearly, she’s picked up her game on the outdoor hard courts of this region, and she will be confident going into the WTA Qatar Open as a result.
She’s also the number 3 seed, which is why I feel she could emerge as the winner this week.
Prediction two – Qinwen Zheng
While Rybakina is my top pick, my second pick is Qinwen Zheng. As you might recall, she reached the finals of the 2024 Australian Open recently, so she’s proved that she belongs with the top dogs of the WTA Tour. Furthermore, she is the number 5 seed here, so she’s definitely in with a shot of winning the WTA Qatar Open.
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