The second WTA 1000 event of the North American hard-court season will take place in Cincinnati, and there will be some high-profile absentees.

This will be the 97th edition of the women’s tournament in Mason, Ohio, which is staged at the Lindner Family Tennis Centre.

The 2025 Cincinnati Open will be a 12-day event held from August 7-18, having been held over a week in previous editions.

World No 1 Aryna Sabalenka is the reigning champion in Cincinnati and she will play for the first time since her Wimbledon semi-final exit, having skipped the Canadian Open.

How many players will feature in the main draw of the 2025 Cincinnati Open?

With the new 12-day format, the singles main draw for the Cincinnati Open has increased from 56 players to 96 players for both the women’s and men’s tournaments.

Of the 96 players in the WTA draw, there will be 72 direct entrants, 16 qualifiers and eight wildcards.

Have any big-name players withdrawn?

Three top 10 players have pulled out of Cincinnati due to injuries: Mirra Andreeva, Qinwen Zheng and Paula Badosa.

Lois Boisson, Ons Jabeur, Alex Eala and Petra Kvitova are the other women who have withdrawn.

Which players have received wildcards?

Two of the six women’s wildcard recipients have been announced, and they are both American: Caty McNally and Venus Williams.

Williams, a 45-year-old who is a seven-time major singles champion and former world No 1, won her first match in over a year in Washington last month.

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Who are the former champions in the main draw?

Three former Cincinnati champions will compete: Sabalenka (2024), Coco Gauff (2023) and Madison Keys (2019).

Have any players used a special ranking to enter?

Players who have been unable to compete in any tournaments due to injury or pregnancy for a minimum of six months are eligible to use the WTA protected ranking system.

The rule allows players to use the ranking they held at the time of their absence to enter eight tournaments, or 12 if they missed more than a year.

Bianca Andreescu, Marketa Vondrousova, Sorana Cirstea, Anastasija Sevastova, Lin Zhu and Wang Yafan have all entered Cincinnati using a special ranking.

Why Emma Raducanu will be seeded

Emma Raducanu has dropped to 38th in the Live WTA Rankings, but she is set to be seeded 30th at the Cincinnati Open.

This is because the latest edition of the WTA Rankings, which were published last week, are used to determine seedings in Cincinnati.

Since Raducanu’s ranking of world No 33 is used, the 22-year-old Brit will be seeded 30th due to the withdrawals of Andreeva, Zheng and Badosa.

2025 WTA Cincinnati Entry List

1. Aryna Sabalenka
2. Coco Gauff
3. Iga Swiatek
4. Jessica Pegula
5. Amanda Anisimova
6. Madison Keys
7. Jasmine Paolini
8. Emma Navarro
9. Elena Rybakina
10. Elina Svitolina
11. Karolina Muchova
12. Ekaterina Alexandrova
13. Liudmila Samsonova
14. Diana Shnaider
15. Daria Kasatkina
16. Clara Tauson
17. Belinda Bencic
18. Beatriz Haddad Maia
19. Elise Mertens
20. Linda Noskova
21. Leylah Fernandez
22. Magdalena Frech
23. Jelena Ostapenko
24. Sofia Kenin
25. Marta Kostyuk
26. Ashlyn Krueger
27. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
28. Anna Kalinskaya
29. McCartney Kessler
30. Emma Raducanu
31. Magda Linette
32. Dayana Yastremska
Yulia Putintseva
Rebecca Sramkova
Barbora Krejcikova
Peyton Stearns
Olga Danilovic
Donna Vekic
Xinyu Wang
Suzan Lamens
Maya Joint
Greet Minnen
Katie Boulter
Anastasia Potapova
Maria Tatjana
Veronika Kudermetova
Lulu Sun
Marie Bouzkova
Elina Avanesyan
Kimberly Birrell
Sonay Kartal
Jaqueline Cristian
Naomi Osaka
Danielle Collins
Hailey Baptiste
Renata Zarazua
Camila Osorio
Elena-Gabriela Ruse
Yuliia Starodubtseva
Alycia Parks
Eva Lys
Jessica Bouzas Maneiro
Lucia Bronzetti
Polina Kudermetova
Ann Li
Moyuka Uchijima
Caroline Dolehide
Wang Yafan (SR)
Marketa Vondrousova (SR)
Sorana Cirstea (SR)
Lin Zhu (SR)
Bianca Andreescu (SR)
Anastasija Sevastova (SR)
Cats McNally (WC)
Venus Williams (WC)
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The post 2025 WTA Cincinnati Open Entry List: Aryna Sabalenka returns as 3 top 10 stars missing; Why Emma Raducanu is seeded appeared first on Tennis365.