TOKYO — The Pan Pacific Open has been rocked by four top-10 withdrawals ahead of the final WTA 500 tournament of the 2026 season, with main-draw action at the 52nd edition set for Monday 26 October to Sunday 1 November at the Ariake Coliseum. Staged on outdoor hard courts with a total prize money pot of $1,206,446, the 28-player draw — where the top four seeds receive a first-round bye and eight seeds feature — will be without a host of leading names, leaving world No 1 Elena Rybakina as the only top-10 player remaining on the entry list. Belinda Bencic are the defending champions after beating Linda Noskova in the 2025 final to claim her first Pan Pacific Open title.
World No 4 Jessica Pegula and world No 9 Iga Swiatek are among the headline absentees. Pegula has played just one match since her US Open semi-final loss to Aryna Sabalenka — a second-round defeat to Jelena Ostapenko in Wuhan last week — and withdrew from both this week’s Ningbo Open and Tokyo after skipping the China Open while feeling fatigued following a busy summer. “Sometimes things can happen because of the accumulation of a lot of matches, playing a lot of tennis,” the 32-year-old American said in Wuhan. “When a big tournament finally ends, I think sometimes, for me at least, I start feeling a little bit run down. For me to balance how I’m feeling physically and mentally, it’s always to know when I’m at that threshold and maybe it’s time to let my body recover and catch up to all the activity and adrenaline that I was going through for the last few months.” Swiatek announced on Tuesday she will not play again in 2026 due to an ongoing thigh injury, a decision which follows Swiatek's decision to end her most challenging season early. “The past few months, or actually the past couple of years, have been incredibly intense and I feel I need to rest and recover my body fully. So that’s exactly what I will do, a bit longer this time,” the Pole explained. “I’ve decided to end my season here, which means I won’t be playing any more tournaments this year.”
World No 6 Elina Svitolina pulled out of Tokyo on Wednesday having also missed the Ningbo Open, two days after announcing on Monday that she had separated from her husband Gael Monfils. Shortly after Svitolina’s withdrawal, compatriot and world No 10 Marta Kostyuk also pulled out after retiring due to injury during her opening match in Ningbo. Kostyuk’s early exit in Ningbo ended her chances of qualifying for the 2026 WTA Finals. The other player to withdraw is world No 23 Anna Kalinskaya; the 27-year-old Russian has not played since retiring from her match against Zheng Qinwen at the China Open due to illness.
Five players currently in the top 10 of the WTA Rankings were on the entry list for the Pan Pacific Open, but four have now pulled out. The late exodus leaves Rybakina to headline a depleted field in Tokyo as the tour reaches its last WTA 500 event of the season before the WTA Finals, with the remaining contenders chasing crucial ranking points and silverware on the hard courts of the Ariake Coliseum.