The draw for the women’s tournament at Lib\u00e9ma Open 2024 has produced a first-round cracker. Former world number one and four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka, participating with a wildcard, was paired with fourth-ranked Elise Mertens.<\/p>
For Osaka, the encounter with Mertens will mark her first match on grass since 2019 and the first match since her memorable performance against Iga Swiatek in the second round at Roland Garros. The Japanese had match point against the late champion in Paris.<\/p>
Jessica Pegula is this year’s top seed. The American world number five start against a qualifier. Like Osaka, the second-seeded Liudmilla Samsonova faces a Belgian in the first round. The top-20 player, last year’s quarter-finalist at Lib\u00e9ma Open, meets Alison van Uytvanck.<\/p>
Of course, Ekaterina Alexandrova cannot be missing from the playing schedule either. The two-time defending champion takes on former top-50 trump Arina Rodionova from Australia.<\/p>
Netherlands’ number one Arantxa Rus has moved into the top half of the schedule and will start against a qualifier, after which an encounter with fifth series leader and last year’s losing finalist Veronika Kudermetova is expected.<\/p>
Wildcard player Suzan Lamens, who has been in excellent form this year, will take on left-hander Bernarda Pera after the Dutch number two was given a taste of the main draw in ‘s-Hertogenbosch in 2022.<\/p>
Osaka is not the only US Open champion in the field. Canadian Bianca Andreescu is also competing on a wildcard and will open her campaign against a qualifier.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The draw for the women’s tournament at Lib\u00e9ma Open 2024 has produced a first-round cracker. Former world number one and four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka, participating with a wildcard, was paired with fourth-ranked Elise Mertens.For Osaka, the encounter with Mertens will mark her first match on grass since 2019 and the first match since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":18729,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libema-open.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18735\/"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libema-open.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libema-open.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post\/"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libema-open.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8\/"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libema-open.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments\/?post=18735"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/libema-open.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18735\/revisions\/"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18757,"href":"https:\/\/libema-open.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18735\/revisions\/18757\/"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libema-open.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18729\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libema-open.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/?parent=18735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libema-open.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories\/?post=18735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libema-open.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags\/?post=18735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}