Elena Rybakina will return to Ningbo to defend her title next month, and she’ll be joined by fellow Top 10 players Jessica Pegula, Elina Svitolina, Iga Swiatek and Marta Kostyuk.
Top 20 players Belinda Bencic, Iva Jovic, Diana Shnaider, Sorana Cirstea, Alexandra Eala, Elise Mertens and Jasmine Paolini will also be in the field at the WTA 500 Ningbo Open.
Anna Kalinskaya, Maja Chwalinska, Marie Bouzkova, Ekaterina Alexandrova and Sara Bejlek round out the direct entrants.
The first five main-draw alternates are Diane Parry, Leylah Fernandez, Jelena Ostapenko, Cristina Bucsa and Wang Xinyu.
The tidy 28-player field also includes six qualifiers, four wild cards and one special exempt spot. The top four seeds will receive byes into the second round.
As the second-to-last 500 on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz calendar, the Ningbo Open will very likely have significant WTA Finals implications. Last year, Rybakina’s title run in Ningbo helped her sneak into the year-end tournament, which she went on to win.
Svitolina, Karolina Muchova and Linda Noskova are currently in possession of the sixth, seventh and eighth spots on the PIF WTA Race to the Finals leaderboard, respectively. (Noskova, as a Grand Slam champion, would have to fall below No. 20 on the leaderboard not to qualify.)
No. 9 Swiatek and No. 10 Kostyuk are presently on the outside looking in.
Played on outdoor hard courts, the Ningbo Open was a WTA 125 event in 2013 and 2014, then became a WTA 250 in 2023 following a nine-year hiatus. The following year, it was upgraded to a WTA 500.
First-round action at the Ningbo Tennis Center kicks off on Monday, Oct. 19, and the tournament will run through Sunday, Oct. 25, when the singles and doubles finals will be played.
In addition to 500 rankings points, the singles champion will take home $185,500.