WUHAN, September 12, 2025 (Press Release)
US Open champion Aryna Sabalenka and Wimbledon winner Iga Swiatek lead an elite player field for next month’s DONGFENG • VOYAH WUHAN OPEN 2025, where Roland Garros victor Coco Gauff, Wimbledon and US Open runner-up Amanda Anisimova, Australian Open title holder Madison Keys and prodigiously talented teenager Mirra Andreeva are all set to compete at the final WTA 1000 tournament of the season.
DONGFENG • VOYAH WUHAN OPEN is the biggest and most prestigious standalone women’s tennis event in Asia and will boast a total prizemoney purse of $3,654,963 (USD) this year. Main Draw play gets underway on Monday 6th October with every player in the Top 40 on the WTA rankings eligible to compete, making it one of the strongest player line-ups of this WTA season.
At least 11 Grand Slam singles champions are expected to play, including all four of 2025’s major winners, plus Olympic singles gold medallists Belinda Bencic (Tokyo 2020) and Wuhan local Qinwen Zheng (Paris 2024). Zheng, who grew up in Hubei Province and trained in Wuhan, was runner up to Sabalenka in a sell-out final in the central Chinese city last year. She is planning a return to competition after undergoing elbow surgery in July.
Four-time major winner Naomi Osaka, British star and 2021 US Open champion Emma Raducanu, former Wimbledon champions Elena Rybakina, Marketa Vondrousova and Barbora Krejickova (who also won the 2021 Roland Garros title), 2017 Roland Garros conqueror Jelena Ostapenko and 2020 Australian Open winner Sofia Kenin are all expected to feature in the field.
Sabalenka is a three-time champion in Wuhan, having won the title in 2018, 2019 and 2024 (the last three years that the tournament was held), and will be bidding to become only the fourth player to win the same WTA top-tier tournament four times in a row and the first player this century to do so. Only Steffi Graf (German Open 1985 – 1989), Conchita Martinez (Italian Open 1993 – 1996) and Monica Seles (Canadian Open 1994 – 1998) have shown such consistency at the same WTA 1000 or equivalent event.
Sabalenka and Swiatek will also be vying for the year-end World No.1 ranking, which Sabalenka clinched in 2024 just after her Wuhan victory.
Andreeva, 18, won WTA 1000 tournaments in Dubai and Indian Wells this year and is one of two teenagers in the 56-player draw, along with her fellow WTA 1000 winner, nineteen-year-old Victoria Mboko, who won her home event in Canada in August. Australian rising star Maya Joint, also 19, is currently four ranking places off gaining direct entry.
Tournament Co-Director Brenda Perry, said: ”We’re delighted to welcome such a spectacular line-up of players back to Wuhan and build on the successful return of Wuhan Open to the calendar last year, with sell-out crowds and so much excitement. We’re very proud to create a showcase for these incredible female athletes with one of the most prestigious women’s sports events in the world.”
The tournament’s 56-player Main Draw comprises 43 spots via direct entry on ranking, eight qualifying places, four wildcards (to be announced) and one “special exempt” position which can be awarded to a player who is unable to take her place in the qualifying draw because she is still competing at the China Open in Beijing. There will also be a 32-player Qualifying Draw (all players expected to be ranked in Top 100) along with a 28 player doubles draw.
