The 2025 Adelaide International does not begin until January, but the tournament has already announced four players for the tournament, including Jessica Pegula and Sebastian Korda.
Belinda Bencic won last year's Adelaide International. The Swiss player, who announced her return to tennis after being on maternity leave this week, performed excellently to overcome Daria Kasatkina in the final in South Australia.
As usual, the 2025 Adelaide International will be played the week before the Australian Open, providing players an ideal opportunity to build momentum before the year's first Grand Slam.
However, there is also the dilemma of top players being hesitant about competing at tournaments the week before the Grand Slams due to concerns about picking up injuries, which has happened many times.
Nonetheless, the Adelaide International still usually succeeds in attracting top players to the combined ATP and WTA event, and the early names on the entry list indicate the tournament organizers have achieved that again for 2025.
Jessica Pegula is one of the players to be announced. The 30-year-old reached this year's US Open final but lost a superb, high-quality match against Aryna Sabalenka in the final at Flushing Meadows.
The American also retained her title at the Canadian Open and made the Cincinnati Open final during a stunning North American hardcourt season, during which she played the best tennis of her career to date.
It was a stunning comeback from Pegula after being struck by injury problems during the first half of the season. She spoke in an interview about how trusting the process was critical to the turnaround in fortunes she enjoyed.
Those results also saw Pegula qualify for the WTA Finals. The American was one of four players who booked their place at the year-end tournament during last week's Wuhan Open, with Coco Gauff among the others.
Pegula proved she is a contender at either of the hard-court Grand Slams, as shown at the US Open. She also signed up for the Brisbane International, which takes place the week before the event in Adelaide.
Barbora Krejcikova is the other WTA Star announced for the 2025 Adelaide International. Her run to the Wimbledon title was one of the most unexpected moments of 2024 after she had been struggling with form and injuries.
Krejcikova also qualified for the WTA Finals. She would not have done so last year, but the WTA introduced new rules allowing Grand Slam champions to qualify if they are among the top 20 players.
Sebastian Korda was one of two Americans confirmed for the Adelaide International. He has been missing since the US Open due to a right elbow injury sustained in the second round against Tomas Machac.
Korda announced that he underwent surgery for the problem and hopes to return to the court as soon as possible, but he withdrew from next week's Vienna Open because of his injury.
Tommy Paul was the other American announced for next year's Adelaide International. He has enjoyed the most successful season of his career in 2024, and hard courts are his favorite surface.