ORDER OF PLAY -- Sunday, October 27
CENTRE COURT -- Not before 4:30 p.m.
[3] Naomi OSAKA (JPN) vs. [6] Petra KVITOVA (CZE)
[1] Ashleigh BARTY (AUS) vs. [7] Belinda BENCIC (SUI)
[2] HSIEH Su-Wei (TPE) / Barbora STRYCOVA (CZE) vs. [7] Samantha STOSUR (AUS) / ZHANG Shuai (CHN)
[4] Gabriela DABROWSKI (CAN) / XU Yifan (CHN) vs. [6] Barbora KREJCIKOVA (CZE) / Katerina SINIAKOVA (CZE)
Your TOP 8️⃣ are saying hello from Shenzen 🌸 @WTAFinals @WTA pic.twitter.com/4Q9ylROgns
— Belinda Bencic (@BelindaBencic) October 25, 2019
MATCH POINTS
Naomi Osaka and Petra Kvitova will open the 2019 Shiseido WTA Finals Shenzhen with a rematch of the 2019 Australian Open final. Osaka defeated Kvitova in that match in three sets, which was their first and heretofore only meeting.
Directly after winning the 2019 Australian Open title, Osaka rose to World No.1 for the first time in her career. The victory earned Osaka a second consecutive Grand Slam title, following up her win at the 2018 US Open.
Osaka is contesting her second straight WTA Finals -- she fell in the round-robin portion of the event last year upon her debut.
Kvitova's appearance in this year's Australian Open championship match was her first Grand Slam final since she won the second of her two Wimbledon titles in 2014.
Kvitova will be playing in her seventh WTA Finals; she won the tournament in her first appearance in 2011, and also reached the final in 2015. Like Osaka, Kvitova also lost in the round-robin portion last season.
This will be the very first meeting between Ashleigh Barty and Belinda Bencic. Both Barty and Bencic are making their WTA Finals debuts this season.
World No.1 Barty notched her first Grand Slam title at Roland Garros this season, defeating Czech teenager Marketa Vondrousova in the final. Weeks later, Barty rose to the world's top ranking for the first time in her career after picking up the title at Birmingham.
Bencic was the final qualifier for this year's WTA Finals, claiming the last remaining spot in style after winning her second title of the year at the VTB Kremlin Cup in Moscow. That title also propelled Bencic back to her career-high ranking of World No.7, a spot she last reached in 2016.