Report: Emma Raducanu draw confusion at Qatar Open after officials left with empty slot

Emma Raducanu was handed two different opponents in the space of a couple of minutes as Qatar Open organisers were forced to restart the draw after a technical mishap.

In the ceremony held in Doha on Friday afternoon, Raducanu’s name initially appeared alongside Anna Kalinskaya, the No 14 seed.

But when the draw was subsequently posted online, the wildcard was listed as a first-round opponent for Ekaterina Alexandrova, whom she also faced at the Australian Open this year.

The i Paper understands that the confusion arose when the Doha draw was completed by tournament officials, all chips, each one of which represents a player, had been drawn by the tournament director – but there was still an empty line on the 56-line draw sheet due to a human error inputting the names.

Seeded players are drawn out first and placed in the blank draw. Unseeded players, including wildcard Raducanu, are then pulled out in a random order and sequentially placed into the empty spaces in the bracket, between the seeds.

It is understood that to preserve the integrity of the draw process, it was decided that all 40 unseeded players should be reallocated. The incorrect draw sheet was never ratified or circulated, although leaked screenshots on social media did cause some confusion.

The British No 2 had initially been the fifth name out of the hat, but once the error was identified and the draw re-conducted, she came out first. It means that if the 22-year-old beats Alexandrova, as she did in Melbourne, she will face top seed Aryna Sabalenka, who has a bye, in the second round.