Top five players who have withdrawn from WTA Berlin Open 2025

Five-time Grand Slam winner Iga Swiatek is the only top-10 seed not featured in Berlin.

The Berlin Open 2025 by HYLO is a professional WTA 500 event, played on outdoor grass courts at the Rot-Weiss Tennis Club in Berlin, Germany. The tournament will be run from June 16 to 22, 2025. It will mark the 98th edition of the historic WTA German Open, part of the 2025 WTA Tour.

Since transitioning from clay in 2021, the tournament has attracted top talent, and this year is no different, with all top-10 WTA players participating except for Iga Swiatek. Headlined by World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff.

The defending champion and third seed Jessica Pegula is joined by Mirra Andreeva, Qinwen Zheng, Jasmine Paolini, and Madison Keys. Wildcards Bianca Andreescu and Naomi Osaka add further star power, with the Japanese facing 2021 champion Liudmila Samsonova in round one. Here’s a look at the top five players who’ve pulled out of the Berlin Open 2025.

5. Belinda Bencic

Belinda Bencic started 2025 on a bright note as she broke into the top-30 rankings once again after taking a break from tennis with a remarkable win over Coco Gauff and a run to the quarterfinals of Indian Wells.

However, the Swiss was forced to forfeit her opening encounter against Maria Sakkari in Rome and has been out of action since then. Her withdrawal opened the door for Magdalena Fręch to enter the main draw as a replacement, set to face top-10 seed Mirra Andreeva in the opening round.

4. Karolína Muchova

Karolína Muchova pulled out of the tournament, citing fitness and scheduling concerns as she prepares for Wimbledon. After two decent competitions at the start of 2025, the Czech has struggled to find rhythm and form.

Poor fitness didn’t help Muchova’s cause, and she has suffered a string of first and second-round defeats. Playing at the Queen’s Club in the hope of acclimatising to the change in conditions, the plan did not work out for the former world No. 8 as she lost in the second round to eventual winner Tatjana Maria.

3. Emma Raducanu

Emma Raducanu withdrew from the Berlin Open due to a lingering back injury that flared up during the HSBC championships, where she reached the quarter-finals before losing to top seed Qinwen Zheng.

The Brit, as a result, will remain unseeded for Wimbledon. Raducanu’s withdrawal led to Bianca Andreescu entering the main draw as a replacement.

2. Elina Svitolina

Due to minor injury concerns, Elina Svitolina decided not to participate in her first grass-court event of the season as a precaution.

The Ukrainian, ranked World No. 13, was replaced by Marta Kostyuk, who was eliminated in the first round by Emma Navarro. Svitolina is expected to return the following week at the WTA 500 tournament in Bad Homburg, as part of her build-up to Wimbledon.

1. Iga Swiatek

Like last year, former World No. 1 Iga Swiatek will not feature in Berlin. The Pole has had a disastrous clay season in 2025 and has struggled in the business end of events. Aryna Sabalenka ended Iga’s long-standing reign in Paris in the semi-finals, which included a bagel in the deciding set.

For the first time since 2022, Swiatek starts as an underdog in a Grand Slam major, and this much needed break from tennis could help rejuvenate her ahead of the second half of the year, where Swiatek has very less to lose, as she aims to scale up the rankings again, positioned currently at World No. 8.

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