Last year, the Mutua Madrid Open final saw Iga Swiatek edge Aryna Sabalenka 7-5, 4-6, 7-6(7) in a classic instalment of the pair's rivalry, a 3-hour, 11-minute barnburner that was widely acknowledged to be one of the best matches of 2024.
Is a repeat on the cards for 2025? The top two players in the world are back and heading this year's entry list. Both have picked up major titles since their Madrid epic -- Swiatek at Roland Garros and Sabalenka at the US Open -- and they played twice more in 2024, with Swiatek reprising her Madrid victory in Rome and Sabalenka taking revenge in Cincinnati. That was their 12th meeting overall; they have not faced each other since.
Swiatek and Sabalenka, the 2021 and 2023 Madrid titlist, will be joined by two further former winners in the main draw -- three-time champion Petra Kvitova and Ons Jabeur, who claimed her first WTA 1000 crown here in 2022. Eleven more Grand Slam champions (alongside Swiatek, Sabalenka and Kvitova) take the total to 14: Coco Gauff, Madison Keys, Elena Rybakina, Barbora Krejcikova, Jelena Ostapenko, Victoria Azarenka, Marketa Vondrousova, Emma Raducanu, Naomi Osaka and Bianca Andreescu.
The entire Top 72 players on the PIF WTA Rankings as of the week of March 17 have entered the Madrid main draw, along with four players using special rankings: Kvitova, who returned from maternity leave last month; Sorana Cirstea, who underwent foot surgery in 2024; Andreescu, whose start to 2025 was delayed due to an emergency appendectomy; and former No. 11 Anastasija Sevastova, who has not played since tearing her ACL in Austin last February, just four tournaments into her own comeback from maternity leave.
The last direct entry is No. 72-ranked Jaqueline Cristian. The first 10 alternates to the main draw are, in order: Katie Volynets, Caroline Garcia, Caroline Dolehide, Eva Lys, Kamilla Rakhimova, Zeynep Sonmez, Emiliana Arango, Maya Joint, Laura Siegemund and Elisabetta Cocciaretto.
