Seven seeded players, including world No 3 Jessica Pegula and rising star Alex Eala, will miss the 2026 China Open with the withdrawal list for the WTA 1000 event now sitting at 15.

The Beijing event, which gets underway on 30 September at the National Tennis Center hard courts with the final set for 11 October, is the first leg of the season-ending WTA 1000 double-header in China with the second leg taking place in Wuhan.

The China Open – the ninth out of 10 WTA 1000 tournaments on the calendar – comes only a couple of weeks after the gruelling North American hard-court swing, many players are struggling with injury while others need an extended break as we reach the end of another long, drawn-out tennis season.

There is good news as the top two players in the WTA Rankings remain on the entry list as new world No 1 Elena Rybakina is the top seed, while Aryna Sabalenka will headline the bottom half of the draw.

Well, for now at least.

WTA News

But world No 3 Pegula, a semi-finalist last year, is the highest-ranked player who won’t feature as the American is nursing a back injury with world No 10 Marta Kostyuk – wrist injury – the other top-10 player who has withdrawn from the tournament.

Defending champion and world No 11 Amanda Anisimova is also out as she is also struggling with a wrist injury with Victoria Mboko (No 15), Sorana Cirstea (No 16), Eala (No 18) and Madison Keys (No 23) the other seeded players to pull out.

Pegula and Anisimova also missed the Singapore Open, but the latter’s inability to defend her title in China will result in a slide in the WTA Rankings as she will drop 1,000 points from her 2025 title run.

“I’m so sad not to be in Beijing this year, but I need to focus on recovering from an injury,” she said in a statement. “The fans in Beijing always give amazing support, so I can’t wait to be back next year.”

Eala is the only seeded player who is not injured, as the 21-year-old is skipping the event to represent the Philippines at the Asian Games in Japan.

WTA China Open 2026 withdrawals

- Jessica Pegula (world No 3) → replaced by Anastasia Zakharova

- Marta Kostyuk (world No 10) → replaced by Kamilla Rakhimova

- Amanda Anisimova (world No 11) → replaced by Alina Charaeva

- Victoria Mboko (world No 15) → replaced by Lanlana Tararudee

- Sorana Cirstea (world No 16) → replaced by Polina Kudermetova

- Alex Eala (world No 18) → replaced by Petra Marcinko

- Madison Keys (world No 23) → replaced by Paula Badosa

- Hailey Baptiste (world No 39) → replaced by Katie Volynets

- Barbora Krejcikova (world No 44) → replaced by Eva Lys

- Karolina Pliskova (world No 49) → replaced Magda Linette

- Zhang Shuai (world No 55) → replaced by Maria Timofeeva

- Jaqueline Cristian (world No 58) → replaced Alycia Parks

- Tereza Valentova (world No 61) → replaced by Taylah Preston

- McCartney Kessler (world No 72) → replaced by Aoi Ito

- Emma Raducanu (world No 98) → replaced Sinja Kraus

The draw for the China Open is set for Monday, 28 September at 1pm local time and more players could join the withdrawal list before the first-round matches get underway on 30 September.

Rybakina struggled with an Achilles injury during her title run at the US Open while Sabalenka skipped the tournament in 2025.