{"id":502402,"date":"2026-02-25T04:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T04:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/502402\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T04:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T04:36:10","slug":"will-eala-be-seeded-sabalenka-swiatek-rybakina-gauff-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/502402\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Eala be seeded? Sabalenka, Swiatek, Rybakina, Gauff star"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Indian Wells Open is the third WTA 1000 tournament on the calendar, and all of the top 32 players in the women\u2019s rankings are set to star at this year\u2019s event.<\/p>\n<p>The 2026 Indian Wells Open will be the 37th edition of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/wta-tour\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">WTA Tour<\/a> event, which is staged at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden \u2014 also known as Tennis Paradise \u2014 in the Californian desert.<\/p>\n<p>The hard-court tournament is considered one of the most prestigious competitions outside of the four Grand Slams.<\/p>\n<p>Mirra Andreeva is the reigning champion, having defeated Aryna Sabalenka in the 2025 championship match.<\/p>\n<p>When will the tournament take place?<\/p>\n<p>The 2026 Indian Wells Open will be held from 4 to 15 March.<\/p>\n<p>How many players will feature in the main draw?<\/p>\n<p>The Indian Wells women\u2019s singles main draw will be feature 96 players, a total made up of 76 direct entrants, 12 qualifiers and eight wildcards.<\/p>\n<p>WTA Tour News<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-news\/wta-rankings-race-to-riyadh-pegula-rybakina-gauff-swiatek\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">WTA Rankings Race To Riyadh: Rybakina retains lead, Pegula soars to 2nd, Gauff up to 8th, Swiatek -3<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-news\/rick-macci-predicts-whether-jessica-pegula-can-win-grand-slam-title\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Serena Williams\u2019 ex-coach predicts whether Jessica Pegula can win a Grand Slam title<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Want more from Tennis365? Add us as <a rel=\"noopener nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=tennis365.com\" target=\"_blank\">a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n<p>Which players have received wildcards?<\/p>\n<p>Venus Williams, a former world No 1 and seven-time major singles champion, is the only player who has received a wildcard so far.<\/p>\n<p>Have any players withdrawn?<\/p>\n<p>Lois Boisson and Veronika Kudermetova have both withdrawn from Indian Wells.<\/p>\n<p>Which former champions will play?<\/p>\n<p>Five former champions are on the entry list: Andreeva (2025), Iga Swiatek (2022 and 2024), Elena Rybakina (2023), Paula Badosa (2021) and Naomi Osaka (2019).<\/p>\n<p>Have any players used a special\/protected ranking to enter?<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Wang Yafan, who is ranked 356th and last played in October, has used a special ranking to enter.<\/p>\n<p>Indian Wells 2026 WTA Singles Entry List and Projected Seeds (24 February)<\/p>\n<p>1. Aryna Sabalenka<br \/>2. Iga Swiatek<br \/>3. Elena Rybakina<br \/>4. Coco Gauff<br \/>5. Jessica Pegula<br \/>6. Amanda Anisimova<br \/>7. Jasmine Paolini<br \/>8. Mirra Andreeva<br \/>9. Elina Svitolina<br \/>10. Victoria Mboko<br \/>11. Ekaterina Alexandrova<br \/>12. Belinda Bencic<br \/>13. Karolina Muchova<br \/>14. Linda Noskova<br \/>15. Madison Keys<br \/>16. Naomi Osaka<br \/>17. Clara Tauson<br \/>18. Iva Jovic<br \/>19. Liudmila Samsonova<br \/>20. Emma Navarro<br \/>21. Diana Shnaider<br \/>22. Elise Mertens<br \/>23. Anna Kalinskaya<br \/>24. Zheng Qinwen<br \/>25. Emma Raducanu<br \/>26. Jelena Ostapenko<br \/>27. Leylah Fernandez<br \/>28. Marta Kostyuk<br \/>29. Maya Joint<br \/>30. Wang Xinyu<br \/>31. Alex Eala<br \/>32. Maria Sakkari<br \/>Jaqueline Cristian<br \/>Marie Bouzkova<br \/>Sorana Cirstea<br \/>Janice Tjen<br \/>Sara Bejlek<br \/>Ann Li<br \/>McCartney Kessler<br \/>Elisabetta Cocciaretto<br \/>Hailey Baptiste<br \/>Katerina Siniakova<br \/>Sofia Kenin Rebecca Sramkova<br \/>Marketa Vondrousova<br \/>Tereza Valentova<br \/>Magda Linette<br \/>Jessica Bouzas Maneiro<br \/>Dayana Yastremska<br \/>Barbora Krejcikova<br \/>Antonia Ruzic<br \/>Sonay Kartal<br \/>Laura Siegemund<br \/>Tatjana Maria<br \/>Varvara Gracheva<br \/>Magdalena Frech<br \/>Daria Kasatkina<br \/>Emiliana Arango<br \/>Polina Kudermetova<br \/>Elsa Jacquemot<br \/>Peyton Stearns<br \/>Cristina Bucsa<br \/>Solana Sierra<br \/>Anna Bondar<br \/>Beatriz Haddad Maia<br \/>Caty McNally<br \/>Eva Lys<br \/>Petra Marcinko<br \/>Elena-Gabriela Ruse<br \/>Francesca Jones<br \/>Ajla Tomljanovic<br \/>Oksana Selekhmeteva<br \/>Yulia Putintseva<br \/>Zeynep Sonmez<br \/>Anna Blinkova<br \/>Paula Badosa<br \/>Anastasia Potapova<br \/>Wang Yafan (SR)<br \/>Venus Williams (WC)<\/p>\n<p>Further wildcards and qualifiers TBC<\/p>\n<p>READ NEXT: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-features\/indian-wells-prize-money-set-decrease-2026-stars-demanding-more-winnings\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Indian Wells prize money set to decrease in 2026 despite stars demanding more winnings in tennis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Indian Wells Open is the third WTA 1000 tournament on the calendar, and all of the top&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-502402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}