Qinwen Zheng has been boosted in status at the Madrid Open following Karolina Muchova’s decision to withdraw.
Zheng returned to tennis in February after playing just two matches in eight months due to an elbow injury, on which she underwent surgery.
The Olympic champion has only played three tournaments since coming back to the WTA Tour, with Zheng withdrawing from the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart last week.
Muchova did compete in Stuttgart, where she reached the final before losing to Elena Rybakina, and she has now withdrawn from the Madrid Open, giving Zheng a boost.
Qinwen Zheng seeded at the Madrid Open after Karolina Muchova withdrawal
Following Zheng’s absence from the WTA Tour, the former world number four has slipped down the rankings.
Zheng is currently the world number 36, which is outside of the 32 seeded ranking places for the Madrid Open.
However, withdrawals from Emma Raducanu, Emma Navarro and Maya Joint meant that Zheng was just one away from being seeded.
After a busy week of matches in Stuttgart, Muchova decided to pull out of the Madrid Open, which has now given Zheng an upgrade to being seeded.
This means that Zheng will now receive a bye to the second round of the Madrid Open and avoids playing another seeded player until the third round.
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Despite Zheng being seeded at the Madrid Open, she still has a challenging draw in the Spanish capital.
This includes a potential second round match against Grand Slam champion Sofia Kenin, who Zheng actually beat in Doha earlier this year.
However, the real challenge for Zheng could come in the third round, where she is likely to play second seed and Australian Open champion Rybakina, who is just coming off the back of winning a title in Stuttgart.
Some of the other potential threats to Zheng in her half of the draw include Coco Gauff, Amanda Anisimova and Madison Keys.
Zheng has won three of her five WTA titles on clay and reached the quarterfinals of the French Open last year, but she has never performed well at the Madrid Open.
In her four previous appearances at the Madrid Open, Zheng has only won one of her five matches and has never surpassed the third round.
The women’s singles main draw at the Madrid Open will get underway on Tuesday, April 21, but seeds will not play their first matches until Thursday or Friday.
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