Adelaide draw: Jessica Pegula, Mirra Andreeva, Madison Keys and Victoria Mboko face tough draws

Shahida Jacobs 10 Jan 2026 9:15 AM

Madison Keys, Jessica Pegula, Victoria Mboko and Mirra Andreeva

The Adelaide International was always going to throw up some interesting encounters and top-20 stars Jessica Pegula, Mirra Andreeva, Madison Keys and Victoria Mboko have all been handed tricky paths.

Top seed Pegula and second seed and defending champion Keys have byes in the first round, but they are likely to meet some stiff opponents in the second round of the final warm-up event before the Australian Open.

Fresh from a 6-0, 6-3 hammering by Marta Kostyuk in the semi-final of the Brisbane International, Pegula is expected to meet Paula Badosa at the WTA 500 tournament should the Spaniard get past a qualifier in her opener.

A Pegula-Clara Tauson quarter-final is on the cards if the seeds hold, but the fifth seed herself has a stiff opener as she takes on wildcard Ajla Tomljanovic. If the Dane reaches the second round, she will then face either Maya Joint or Sofia Kenin.

And the rest of the top half of the draw also contains good match-ups as third seed Andreeva starts off against world No 22 Leylah Fernandez while sixth seed Emma Navarro faces 17-year-old Australian wildcard Emerson Jones.

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If it all goes according to the seedings, then Pegula will take on Andreeva for a place in the final of the Adelaide event.

Keys, meanwhile, faces either Jelena Otapenko or a qualifier in her second-round match while eighth seed Mboko could stand in her way in the quarter-finals.

World No 18 Mboko kicks her campaign off against former world No 10 Beatriz Haddad Maia with the winner taking on either Anna Kalinskaya or a qualifier before a possible meeting with reigning Australian Open champion Keys.

American Keys is facing a slip down in the rankings in the next few weeks as she is also dropping 2,000 points at Melbourne Park in a week’s time.

Current world No 10 Ekaterina Alexandrova is seeded fourth and she starts against a qualifier with Maria Sakkari or Daria Kasatkina next if she wins her opener.

Seventh seed Liudmila Samsonova is also in the bottom half of the draw and will take on 2023 Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova, who used her protected ranking to enter the main draw following recent injury struggles.