Rising South-East Asian talents Alexandra Eala and Janice Tjen have both received main-draw wild cards for the WTA 500 Mubadala Abu Dhabi Open, which begins on February 1.
World No. 49 Eala is the first Filipina ever to be ranked inside the Top 50. The 20-year-old became a sensation after upsetting Iga Swiatek, Madison Keys and Jelena Ostapenko en route to the Miami semifinals last year. She has since reached her first WTA final in Eastbourne, and she opened 2026 with a semifinal run in Auckland. Eala will be making her second appearance in Abu Dhabi, having lost to Magda Linette in the 2024 first round.
Pepperdine University alumna Tjen put together a spectacular rise to the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz following her graduation in 2024. Unranked in June that year, she cracked the Top 100 just 16 months later, becoming the first Indonesian player to be ranked inside it since Angelique Widjaja in 2004. Tjen, 23, ended 2025 at No. 53 after reaching her first WTA final in Sao Paulo and capturing her first WTA title in Chennai. Having made the second round of the Australian Open last week, she will become just the second Indonesian to reach the Top 50 next week, following former No. 19 Yayuk Basuki.
Four major titlists are in the Abu Dhabi main-draw entry list — Elena Rybakina, Jelena Ostapenko, Sofia Kenin and Barbora Krejcikova — as well as defending champion Belinda Bencic. Olympic gold medallist Zheng Qinwen, who missed the Australian Open due to recovering from an elbow injury, is scheduled to make her return in Abu Dhabi, and Montreal champion Victoria Mboko is also set to make her tournament debut. However, former Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova has withdrawn due to a shoulder injury.
The wild cards for next week’s WTA 250 Transylvania Open have also been announced, including 2024 champion and former World No. 1 Karolina Pliskova. The 33-year-old Czech is now ranked No. 1,057 and on the comeback trail from a foot injury that sidelined her for 13 months in 2024-25, she is fresh off a promising third-round run at the Australian Open.
Three further Cluj-Napoca main-draw wild cards have been awarded to Romanian hopes — former No. 39 Ana Bogdan, No. 199-ranked Miriam Bulgaru and 19-year-old Elena Ruxandra Bertea, who will be making her tour-level debut. Bertea rose from No. 699 to No. 319 in 2025 after compiling a 61-24 record.
Former US Open champion Emma Raducanu heads the main-draw entry list, which also features defending champion Anastasia Potapova, Olympic silver medallist Donna Vekic and the top three Romanians in the world — Jaqueline Cristian, Sorana Cirstea and Elena-Gabriela Ruse.
Two main-draw wild cards have been awarded to home players for next week’s WTA 250 Ostrava Open — former junior No. 1 Lucie Havlickova and former No. 40 Tereza Martincova. Havlickova, 20, was the Roland Garros girls’ champion in 2022; she was unranked last July following a year-long hiatus, but has alsready risen to No. 281 this week.
Former Wimbledon semifinalist Tatjana Maria heads the Ostrava main-draw entry list, which also includes Emiliana Arango, Viktorija Golubic and Caty McNally. The tournament is returning to the WTA calendar for the first time since 2022, when Krejcikova defeated Iga Swiatek in the final.
