Qatar Open

The Qatar Open is a WTA 1000 tennis tournament held in Doha on hard courts, played in February. Only the women's tour plays here, in a main singles draw of 56.

Doha opens the short Middle East stretch that bridges the Australian season and the American spring, and it is as much an evening tournament as a daytime one. The heat pushes the schedule late, and the courts play noticeably quicker under floodlights than they do in the afternoon sun.

Because it falls between two much larger blocks of the calendar, the entry list is a good barometer of who is fit and who is resting. Players who went deep in Melbourne sometimes skip it altogether, which opens the draw for anyone who arrives sharp.

The conditions are dry and the ball travels, so this is a week that rewards flat, early hitting rather than heavy topspin.

Doha has staged a women's tournament since 2001, at the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex in the west of the city. A separate men's week runs at the same site earlier in the season, so the courts host two distinct tour stops each year rather than one combined event.

Iga Swiatek won Doha three years running, in 2022, 2023 and 2024, the only woman to take the title three times. Her run covered the period when she held the world number one ranking. The tournament also sits at the point in the calendar where the leading players choose which of the two Middle East weeks to commit to, so the entry list can move late and the draw is worth checking again the day it comes out.

Entry lists, the order of play and the tournament's own announcements sit on its page at the tour.

Qualifying is not counted in the dates above. It is played the week before, and it is the reason two calendars can disagree by seven days about when this tournament starts.

The Qatar Open main draw holds 56 players in single elimination, 6 rounds to the title and 55 matches in all, with the top 8 seeds held out of the first round so their route is one match shorter. The guides explain what the numbers beside the names mean and who gets a bye in a draw of 56.

The Qatar Open draw with every score is on its own page and updates while the tournament is being played.

Karolina Muchova won the women's title in 2026, beating Victoria Mboko in the final by 6-4, 7-5. They were ranked 8 in the world at the time of writing.

5 of the 8 quarter-finalists in the women's draw were seeded, which is close to what the seedings predicted. Karolina Muchova took the Qatar Open title from the number 14 seeding, and the final went 2 sets.

Rights to the Qatar Open are sold country by country, so the answer depends entirely on where you are sitting. Nothing here is free to air in the major markets, which is the usual position below Grand Slam level.

The Qatar Open is played in Doha, in the Gulf, and matches are played in the late afternoon and evening local time, which is a comfortable afternoon slot for Europe.

Doha plays into the evening because of the heat, and the last match on centre court frequently starts after 8pm local. For Western Europe that is a late afternoon or early evening slot, which makes it one of the more watchable weeks of the winter. Only the main court gets a full broadcast feed; the second and third courts are usually available as a stream if at all, and that is where the early rounds are played.

Which services carry which part of the season is laid out in the guide.