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Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff and Elena Rybakina are set for their first WTA 1000 tournament of the season as the top-3 Doha seeds have learned their projected path to the title at the Qatar Open.
Swiatek, the top-seeded player and the back-to-back champion in Doha in 2022 and 2023, has a first-round bye as she plays against the winner of the match between Sorana Cirstea and 2017 US Open champion Sloane Stephens in the second round. After potentially meeting a Grand Slam champion in her Doha opener, Swiatek is projected to meet a seeded player for the first time in the round-of-16 - No. 14 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova.
In the Doha quarterfinal, Swiatek could meet a player who is a nightmare matchup for her - Jelena Ostapenko, who has a 4-0 head-to-head against the Pole. Then, the projected Doha semifinal sees Swiatek taking on No. 4 seed Ons Jabeur and clashing against No. 2 seed Gauff in the final, respectively.
Gauff's path to the Doha title
As mentioned above, Gauff is the second-seeded player and also has a first-round bye before taking on either Donna Vekic or Katerina Siniakova. For a place in the Doha quarterfinal, Gauff's likely opponent would be No. 13 seed Veronika Kudermetova.
In the Doha quarterfinal, we could see a meeting between two Grand Slam winners from 2023 - Gauff and Marketa Vondrousova. The projected semifinal in the bottom half of the sees Gauff and No. 3 seed Rybakina squaring off against each other. As mentioned above, the projected Doha final sees two top seeds Swiatek and Gauff meeting.
Rybakina's Doha path
Just like Swiatek and Gauff, third-seeded Rybakina also won't play in the first round as she will play in the second round against either Zhu Lin or Varvara Gracheva. In the Doha round-of-16 and quarterfinal, Rybakina is projected to meet No. 16 seed Emma Navarro and 2024 Australian Open finalist Zheng Qinwen, respectively.
As mentioned above, the projected semifinal in the bottom half has Rybakina taking on Gauff. If Rybakina reaches the Doha final, she would likely play No. 1 seed Swiatek there.
It remains to be seen if Swiatek can win her third consecutive Doha title or if Gauff or Rybakina could win their first title in Qatar.