WTA - Abu Dhabi

The WTA Tour begins 2021 in the Middle East. The Abu Dhabi tournament was previously a singles exhibition tournament held in December for men and women. It has now been added as an official WTA event as part of a calendar adjustment due to the Australian Open being pushed back three weeks.

The exhibition tournament was not held in 2020 due to COVID-19.

2021 Abu Dhabi Women’s Tennis Open - a WTA 500 tournament, on Hard, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 5-13 January 2021.

No defending champion:

This is a new event

The following players withdrew after entering but before the main draw was published:

- Belinda Bencic replaced by Vera Zvonareva 

- Danielle Collins replaced by Tamara Zidansek 

- Fiona Ferro replaced by lucky loser Jodie Burrage

- Caroline Garcia replaced by Jasmine Paolini  

- Svetlana Kuznetsova replaced by Wang Xiyu 

- Jelena Ostapenko replaced by Marta Kostyuk 

- Katerina Siniakova replaced by Aliaksandra Sasnovich 

- Patricia Maria Tig replaced by Anastasia Potapova 

- Alison Van Uytvanck replaced by Jamie Loeb

- Zheng Saisai replaced by Leylah Fernandez 

- 14th seed Amanda Anisimova replaced by Ulrikke Eikeri

Amanda Anisimova withdrew due to illness and Ekaterina Alexandrova was instated as 17th seed.

Alexandrova is drawn to play 2nd seed Elina Svitolina in the round of sixteen.

Sofia Kenin, world number 4, is top seed.

The other 15 seeds are all in the top 33

There are no byes.