The 83rd edition of the Internazionali BNL d’Italia gets underway this week at the Foro Italico, and the women’s draw arrives with the kind of depth that turns a clay tournament into an early test of form, fitness and nerve. World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka is the top seed in a field that includes all Top 20 players.
Sabalenka reached the Rome final in 2024 and has opened the 2026 season with three titles and 26 wins from her first 28 matches on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz. She begins against either Barbora Krejcikova or Elsa Jacquemot, with Sorana Cirstea possible in the third round and Linda Noskova looming in the fourth. For a player still chasing her first Rome title, the draw offers little comfort.
The tournament is the second leg of the WTA’s back-to-back clay-court WTA 1000 events, which makes this week in Rome more than a stopover. It is the point where the clay season’s first major patterns can harden, and the top seeds will have to handle the surface shift quickly. Sabalenka’s results suggest she is ready. Her path says otherwise.
Among the most consequential names in her half is Amanda Anisimova, the sixth seed, who is set for her clay debut after withdrawing from Madrid because of a wrist injury. Anisimova also carries a rare edge against Sabalenka: she leads their head-to-head 6-5 overall and 3-2 on clay. If both get through the opening rounds, the matchup would bring immediate weight to the bottom half of the draw.
Coco Gauff brings a different kind of pressure. The third seed was runner-up in Rome in 2025 and opens against the winner of Yulia Putintseva and Tereza Valentova. Raducanu could wait in the third round, but only if she gets past an eye-catching return of her own: this will be her first tournament since Indian Wells after a viral illness. Gauff could then meet Iva Jovic in the fourth round, while defending champion Jasmine Paolini is in the same section. Mirra Andreeva, the Madrid runner-up, adds another name capable of reshaping that quarter.
At the other end of the draw, Iga Swiatek remains the benchmark on Roman clay. She is a three-time champion in 2021, 2022 and 2024, yet she has not reached a semifinal in 2026. That makes her opening section tricky rather than automatic. The winner of Daria Kasatkina and Caty McNally faces Swiatek, and Kasatkina arrives in Rome ranked No. 66 after a run that included a WTA 125 title in Spain. Former top-10 form and recent momentum do not always travel the same way, but Rome has a habit of exposing whoever is least settled.
Belinda Bencic is seeded No. 12, Linda Noskova No. 13, Iva Jovic No. 16, Sorana Cirstea No. 26, Emma Raducanu No. 27 and Maya Joint No. 29, a reminder that the draw is loaded beyond the headline names. For Sabalenka, Gauff and Swiatek, the challenge is not just who stands across the net in the first round. It is how many heavy matches this field can force before the week is done.
That is what makes Rome Open 2026 worth watching now: the tournament starts with all the leading players in place, but the draw already asks whether the familiar hierarchy on clay will hold, or whether one of the sport’s most crowded weeks will produce an upset before the semifinals even come into view.