Emma Raducanu is already closing on her big rankings target for 2026 and she has been handed a big chance to cement a seeding at next year’s Australian Open after being handed an enticing draw for the WTA 1000 tournament in Beijing.
Raducanu opted out of playing for Great Britain in last week’s Billie Jean King Cup finals and played in a WTA Tour event in Seoul instead.
That decision was controversial as many critics suggested she should have represented her nation in a tournament that saw them knocked out in the semi-finals in Shenzen by Lindsay Davenport’s USA team.
That USA side was led by Jessica Pegula and now Raducanu could be in line to face the World No 7 in Beijing after an enticing draw for one of the biggest remaining tournaments on the WTA Tour in 2025.
Raducanu has been seeded for the tournament in Beijing and that ensures she is guaranteed some welcome ranking points for a second round appearance, where she could be in line to face Croatia’s Donna Vekic.
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Vekic will need to beat a qualifier to set up that meeting with Raducanu and it would be a first meeting between the two players.
If Raducanu gets to the third round, Pegula could be lying in wait and she may fancy her chances of giving the US Open semi-finalist from earlier this month a battle.
Raducanu recorded her first win against a top ten player on the WTA Tour when she beat Pegula at Eastbourne last year and she contested a high-quality battle against the American in the Miami Open quarter-finals earlier this year.
A third round appearance would give Raducanu 65 ranking points and if she could reach the fourth round, that would be worth 120 points.
A quarter-final appearance would boost her ranking points tally by 215 points and a first appearance in a WTA 1000 semi-final would be worth 390 points.
With no points to defend from this point last year, any progress she can make in Beijing and the WTA 1000 event in Wuhan that will follow next month would boost her ranking as she closes in a goal of heading into 2026 in the top 32 of the WTA Rankings, which is where she would need to be to get a seeding for the Australian Open.
“So I’ve just got to do my best in the next few months until Australia to just keep working to try and close the gap and try and get seeded for Melbourne,” she said.
“I think depending on the day, depending on how we match up, I think I’m getting better overall. I think I’m improving for sure in the last few months. So I just need to keep consistent and put this one behind.”
Raducanu had three match points in her match against two-time Grand Slam winner Barbora Krejcikova in Seoul last week and while she was hugely disappointed to lose that match, her level of performance boded well for what is to come.
Being seeded in Beijing has already given her ranking a boost and if she could win a couple of matches, she will be well on her way to securing a top 30 finish heading into the new year.
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