Mari Osaka will join her sister Naomi in the main draw of the 2019 Miami Open which will mean it’s the first time they will be playing a WTA tournament together.
In fact, the world number 336 has never won a match in the main draw of a WTA tournament before this. Mari is the elder sister of two-time Grand Slam winner Naomi, and had a career-high ranking of 280th last year.
The older Osaka sister has featured in four ITF finals as well but has lost them all. Interestingly in the fourth of those finals, she was beaten by Bianca Andreescu in three sets. Andreescu is the current finalist at the Indian Wells Open, having got there with wins over Dominika Cibulkova, Wang Qiang, Garbine Muguruza and Elina Svitolina on her way to there.
Joining Mari with the wild-card will be the likes of Olga Danilović, Cori Gauff, Caty McNally, Whitney Osuigwe, Natalia Vikhlyantseva, Wang Xinyu and Wang Xiyu.
Anna-Lena Friedsam will also be a part of the main draw using the protected ranking method, while 12 other qualifiers will make it through the first round after the qualifying rounds in the tournament.
There are a couple of withdrawals from the main draw as well. Russians Ekaterina Makarova and Maria Sharapova will both miss the competition and Sara Sorribes Tormo and Margarita Gasparayan will come into the main draw in their place.
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