Berlin draw: Gauff tops the field; Osaka, Zheng set for first-round rematch

World No.8 Zheng Qinwen and four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka will play each other in the first round of the ecotrans Ladies Open in Berlin, the first WTA 500 event of the grass-court season.

The full draw for the tournament was made Saturday, and the first-round match between the two marks the second time in five weeks that Zheng and Osaka will have played, and the third match overall between the two. The Australian Open finalist was a 6-2, 6-4 winner in the fourth round of the Internazionali BNL d’Italia last month, telling media afterwards that she had the utmost respect for the former World No.1 and her return to the Hologic WTA Tour as a mother.

Zheng will be making her grass-court season debut, while Osaka comes off a quarterfinal loss to Bianca Andreescu at this week’s Libema Open, the first match between the two Grand Slam champions in five years.

The winner could be a potential quarterfinal opponent for No.4 seed Jessica Pegula in the draw’s top half, which is headlined by new World No.2 Coco Gauff. After Iga Swiatek’s pre-tournament withdrawal, top seed Gauff will play her first match against either Beatriz Haddad Maia or Ekaterina Alexandrova.

In the draw’s bottom half, No.2 seed Aryna Sabalenka will open against either Marta Kostyuk or Daria Kasatkina, with reigning Wimbledon champion and No.5 seed Marketa Vondrousova as her potential quarterfinal opponent. Elena Rybakina is seeded No.3, and after a bye, could face former champion Liudmila Samsonova — against whom she is 1-4 all-time. Samsonova faces a qualifier in her first match.

Other notable first-round matches include No.7 seed Maria Sakkari vs. Victoria Azarenka, and Czech teenager Linda Noskova against former World No.1 Angelique Kerber, who was given a wild card to the tournament and will be playing her first match on grass since 2022.