The inaugural Chicago Fall Tennis Classic will take place from September 27th through October 3rd. The first edition of the WTA 500 event would include a number of top-ranked players.
Let’s take a look at how the draw might play out now that it’s been made public.
The top four seeds are Ukrainian Elina Svitolina, two-time Grand Slam champion Garbine Muguruza, Tokyo Olympic gold medalist Belinda Bencic, and this year’s French Open finalist Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
Likely fixtures
Elina Svitolina, the No. 1 seed, will play the winner of the first-round match between Amanda Anisimova and Viktorija Golubic in her first-round match. In the quarterfinals, Svitolina will most likely meet No. 6 seed Ons Jabeur, who might pose a serious challenge to her title hopes.
Svitolina might meet Belinda Bencic in the semifinals if she advances to the penultimate round. Kim Clijsters (unranked), a four-time Grand Slam champion, makes her comeback to the tour. In the first round of the WTA Championships in Chicago, Clijsters will face Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-Wei.
This draw ?
— José Morgado (@josemorgado) September 25, 2021
Clijsters-Hsieh ? pic.twitter.com/PcsPQOsK2i
Elena Rybakina, who is seeded fifth, will likely face Madison Keys in the second round because they are in the same half. In what might be a replay of their Tokyo Games semifinal, Rybakina could meet Bencic in the quarterfinals.
Garbine Muguruza, the No. 2 seed, faces a difficult road to the final. In the third round, the Spanish tennis star is scheduled to meet Victoria Azarenka, a rematch of their dramatic third-round match at the US Open in 2021.
Muguruza might face Bianca Andreescu, the 2019 US Open champion, in the quarterfinals. If Muguruza makes it to the last four, she would almost certainly face either Elise Mertens or Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who both appear to be eyeing a quarterfinal encounter.
Rybakina vs. Svitolina in the top half and Muguruza vs. Pavlyuchenkova in the bottom half of the 2021 Chicago Fall Tennis Classic semifinals are likely.
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