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World No. 1 Iga Swiatek leads a strong draw at the 2022 Ostrava Open, a WTA 500-level indoor hard-court tournament in Ostrava, Czech Republic.
Along with the reigning US Open champion, Ostrava features four of the WTA Tour Top 10 and a total of seven major champions, including Elena Rybakina, Emma Raducanu, and Jelena Ostapenko. Coming off a semifinal run in Seoul, Raducanu will face No.5 seed Daria Kasatkina in the first round of the Ostrava Open. Ostrava will be Kasatkina's first tournament since the US Open. The winner of the first round match will face either Seoul champion Ekaterina Alexandrova or Victoria Azarenka in the second round. Swiatek tops the draw, with No.3 Paula Badosa, defending champion and No.4 Anett Kontaveit, and No.7 Maria Sakkari rounding out the Top 4 seeds. In her opening match, Swiatek will face either Tokyo semifinalist Zhang Shuai or a qualifier. No.2 seed Badosa will face either Petra Kvitova or a qualifier. Kontaveit and Sakkari head into Ostrava off confidence-boosting weeks in Tallinn and Parma, respectively. Kontaveit advanced to the semifinals in her home tournament in Tallinn and Sakkari made her first final since Indian Wells in Parma. Sakkari will face either Karolina Pliskova or a qualifier in her first-round match. Kontaveit will face Jil Teichmann or Tereza Martincova. Elena Rybakina and Madison Keys will square off for a third time this season, with the American holding a 2-0 edge. Keys bested Rybakina in three sets at Roland Garros and ousted the Wimbledon champion in straight sets in Cincinnati. On the other hand, Barbora Krejikova and Shelby Rogers will enjoy a resurgent week in Tallinn, where Krejikova defeated Belinda Bencic, Beatriz Haddad Maia, Marta Kostyuk, and Ajla Tomljanovic en route to the final. After a frustrating singles season that has seen her ranking drop to No.27, her victories over Bencic and Haddad Maia were her first Top 20 wins since January. (ANI)
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