The Qatar tournament, the first WTA 1000 event of the season, sees both Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff playing for the first time since the Australian Open; Watch over 80 tournaments a year, including the US Open, exclusively live on Sky Sports Tennis
Friday 9 February 2024 22:30, UK
Emma Raducanu has received a wild card into the Qatar Open and she will face Ukraine's Anhelina Kalinina in the opening round next week.
The former US Open champion was beaten 6-4 6-1 in her last-16 match against Ons Jabeur at the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Open and revealed on Wednesday she was hoping to play in Doha.
Kalinina beat Raducanu on clay courts in Madrid 2022 with the 32nd ranked Ukrainian winning a close content in three sets.
The winner of the match will take on eighth seed Jelena Ostapenko, who has already won two titles this season.
Raducanu returned to the tour at the beginning of January after her recovery from three operations last spring, on both wrists and one ankle.
She convincingly beat Marie Bouzkova in Abu Dhabi but her defeat to Jabeur left the 21-year-old disappointed about her performance.
"It was a tough match," said Raducanu. "Ons is a difficult opponent so credit to her, she played really well and it's just a match that personally I need to forget about."
The Qatar tournament, the first WTA 1000 event of the season - the highest level of the tour - sees both Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff playing for the first time since the Australian Open, but Melbourne champion Aryna Sabalenka is not in the field.
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