The players on the women’s tour now know their path to the Mutua Madrid Open final. Excitement is guaranteed from the very first point of the tournament, with high-calibre matches every day.
Simona Halep, the tournament’s defending champion, will play her opener against the twin sister of the world number 3, the Czech Krystina Pliskova. The Romanian is in the same part of the draw as Krystina’s sister, in this case a Karolina Pliskova who will try to take advantage of the conditions in the Caja Magica in her first match against Lasia Tsurenko.
The four Spanish players in the tournament’s main draw are all in the same half of the draw.
Garbiñe Muguruza faces a very hard task in the first round, where she will take on the Swiss Timea Bacsinszky. Carla Suarez will be bidding for a place in the second round against the Chinese Shuai Peng, while the two wildcards, Lara Arruabarrena and Sara Sorribes, will play their openers against Cristina McHale and Samantha Stosur, respectively.
Standout matches in the first round are:
[1] A. Kerber (GER) vs. T. Babos (HUN)
A. Cornet (FRA) vs. E. Bouchard (CAN)
[WC] M. Sharapova (RUS) vs. [17] M. Lucic-Baroni (CRO)
[4] D. Cibulkova (SVK) vs. J. Jankovic (SRB)
M. Niculescu (ROU) vs. [10] C. Wozniacki (DEN)
R. Vinci (ITA) vs. D. Kasatkina (RUS)
