Qualifying Statement: Expanded Draws Mean More Opportunities, More Action at 2025 Cincinnati Open

By Richard Osborn

Everything will feel a bit grander in scale at the 2025 Cincinnati Open.

More players, more courts (think a $260 million site-wide transformation), more day/night sessions, more action. That goes for the ATP and WTA qualifying draws, too. This year, they’ll jump from 28- to 48-player fields, with a dozen competitors advancing to the each of the men’s and women’s main draws of 96.

And, as we’ve seen over the years in Cincinnati, you never know what surprises the qualifying rounds might have in store. Just ask Caroline Garcia. In 2022, the Frenchwoman reeled off eight straight matches — including three main-draw wins over Top-10 opponents — to become the first-ever qualifier to win a WTA 1000 tournament.

“Pure joy” was how Garcia described her achievement following a 6-3, 6-4 dismissal of two-time Wimbledon titlist Petra Kvitova in the championship match. “I guess no one expected it,” she said. “It’s a long way to come from qualies.”

A long way indeed. But since 2010, seven qualifiers have played their way into the quarterfinals or better in the women’s main draw at the Cincinnati Open, including Garcia, Jasmine Paolini (2023), Ajla Tomljanović (2022), Jessica Pegula (2020), Timea Babos (2016), Anna Karolína Schmiedlová (2015) and Akgul Amanmuradova (2010).

Pegula’s upsurge included a 6-2, 2-6, 6-3 third-round upending of Aryna Sabalenka. (Sabalenka would avenge that loss to Pegula four years later in a high-stakes rematch — the 2024 Cincinnati Open final.)

Ukraine’s Alexandr Dolgopolov, then a 66th-ranked qualifier, took the tennis world by surprise in 2015 when he surged into the Cincinnati Open semis and even pushed world No. 1 Novak Djokovic to the limit in a nail-biting 4-6, 7-6(5), 6-2 loss.

Five other qualifiers have reached the quarters of the men’s main draw since 2010: Alexei Popyrin (2023), Max Purcell (2023), Yoshihito Nishioka (2019), Andrey Rublev (2019) and Dimitry Tursunov (2013). Rublev’s unforeseen run is an especially memorable one. In his only career encounter with Roger Federer, he stunned the record seven-time tournament titlist in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4, in Round 3. A joyfully tearful Rublev, who wasn’t even slated to play the Cincinnati Open until he was added to the qualifying draw as an alternate in the eleventh hour, would call it “the biggest and the most emotional win” of his career.

“He was everywhere,” marveled Federer, the Cincinnati Open champion in 2005, 2007, 2009-10, 2012, and 2014-15.

“In my head, I was just trying not to look at my team, not to look at the score, not to look at Roger,” confessed Rublev, who also stunned a multi-Grand Slam winner in Stan Wawrinka, 6-4, 6-4, in the second round.

The expanded Cincinnati Open qualifying rounds are slated for Aug. 5-6, not only giving tennis fans a chance to catch an early glimpse of the sparkling new grounds of the Lindner Family Tennis Center, but to see the next superstars-in-the-making. Recent qualifying rounds have included everyone from Carlos Alcaraz, Tommy Paul and Casper Ruud to Iga Swiatek, Paula Badosa and Leylah Fernandez. Who’ll be the next qualifier to make a name for himself/herself in Cincy?

Register for the 2025 ticket pre-sale for 24-hour early access to tickets from qualifying rounds to championship weekend.