Seoul’s home contingent has produced a landmark opening round at the Korea Open, with Back Dayeon, Park Sohyun and Ku Yeonwoo all advancing to the last 16. It is the first time in 42 years that three South Korean players have won first-round matches at the same WTA event.
Home wild cards sweep through opening round
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Back, 24, began the run on Monday by defeating Yuan Yue 6-3, 4-6, 6-1. The victory sent her into the second round in Seoul for the second time.
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Park, also 24 and competing on a wild card, followed on Tuesday with the first tour-level win of her career. She overcame Robin Montgomery, the ’s-Hertogenbosch champion, 7-6(4), 6-3.
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Ku, 23, completed a clean first-round record for the Korean wild cards. She defeated Alevtina Ibragimova 6-3, 6-2 for her maiden WTA main-draw victory.
The last occasion on which three South Koreans reached the second round of a WTA tournament came in Rio de Janeiro in 1984. Han Eun-Sook went on to reach the quarterfinals, while Helen Park and Lee Jeong-Soon exited in the second round. Each had entered that event through qualifying.
The Korea Open has been part of the WTA schedule since 2004, but there had previously been only two editions in which two local players reached round two. Jang Su-Jeong and Lee Ye-Ra did so in 2013, while Jang and Back repeated the feat in 2023.
Jang remains the most recent South Korean woman to make a WTA quarterfinal. In 2013, she beat Klara Koukalova and Ons Jabeur before reaching the last eight.
Three different routes to Seoul breakthrough
All three winners were once ranked inside the Top 50 as juniors and have received wild-card opportunities in Seoul over recent seasons.
Ku is the youngest member of the trio and has made the sharpest recent rise. She first appeared in a WTA main draw at the 2023 Korea Open after qualifying while ranked No. 540. Her ranking moved from No. 523 in April last year to the Top 200 by November after a 63-22 campaign.
Her late-season surge included 18 victories from her final 20 matches, consecutive W35 titles in Portugal, and finals at the Takasaki W100 and Yokohama W50. This season, Ku has played qualifying at all four Grand Slams. At Roland Garros, she took the opening set 6-0 from former world No. 1 Karolina Pliskova before losing 0-6, 6-3, 6-1. She also reached the second qualifying round at the US Open. Ku attained a career-high ranking of No. 171 in July and is now No. 185.
Back made her WTA debut in Seoul in 2022. A year later, ranked No. 569, she recorded the biggest win of her career by defeating top seed Jelena Ostapenko 3-6, 6-1, 7-6(4). Ostapenko was No. 13 at the time and had beaten then-world No. 1 Iga Swiatek at the US Open only weeks earlier.
Back has continued that upward movement this year, putting together a 17-match winning run across May and June. The streak brought W35 trophies in Andong, Changwon and Taipei and helped lift her to a personal-best No. 245 in July. She enters this week ranked No. 272.
Park’s Seoul story goes back furthest. She was an unranked 18-year-old when she received her first tour-level wild card here in 2018. In 2022, she pushed former No. 10 Kristina Mladenovic to three sets before falling 6-4, 4-6, 6-3.
Now a 10-time World Tennis champion, Park won the Goyang W35 in April and reached her peak ranking of No. 244 in February. She currently stands at No. 329.
Seeds await in the last 16
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Park will meet third seed Lanlana Tararudee.
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Back has drawn fifth seed Maya Joint.
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Ku will play fourth seed Elena-Gabriela Ruse.
Park and Ku are each seeking a first completed victory over a Top 100 opponent. Park did defeat Wang Xiyu when the Chinese player retired during Billie Jean King Cup play in 2024, but neither Park nor Ku has yet finished a full match with a Top 100 win on her record.
