Every November, a few dozen players from across Asia and the Pacific gather for a week that can change their January. The Australian Open Asia-Pacific Wildcard Play-off gives its men’s and women’s singles champions a place in the main draw at Melbourne Park, a route that has taken players who had never been near a Grand Slam main draw onto the biggest courts in Melbourne.
The 2026 edition, which feeds the Australian Open in January 2027, is in Chengdu, China. This guide covers the dates, the draw, who has entered, how the event fits among the other ways into the Australian Open main draw, and the players who have used it.
Key Facts
- Event: AO Asia-Pacific Wildcard Play-off, run by Tennis Australia
- City: Chengdu, China
- Singles: Monday 23 to Saturday 28 November 2026
- Doubles: Tuesday 24 to Friday 27 November 2026
- Singles draws: 16 players in each main draw, with an eight-player qualifying draw
- The prize: a main-draw wild card into the Australian Open
- First held: Nanjing, China, in October 2012, for the 2013 Australian Open
Dates and Schedule for 2026
Tennis Australia names each edition after the Australian Open it feeds, so the event played in November 2026 is the “AO 2027” play-off. The singles run from Monday 23 to Saturday 28 November. Sign-in for singles qualifying closes at 4pm on Sunday 22 November, and the main draws are released on Monday 23 November.
Doubles run from Tuesday 24 to Friday 27 November. Doubles entries close on Monday 16 November, and on-site sign-in closes at 12pm on Monday 23 November. At least one player from each team has to sign in in person.
Chengdu is a regular home for the event. The 2024 and 2025 editions were played at the Sichuan International Tennis Centre. Tennis Australia had not confirmed the 2026 venue when this guide was written.
Draw Format and Who Can Enter
The women’s singles main draw has 16 places: eight direct acceptances on ranking, four wild cards and four qualifiers. The wild cards are split evenly, two from the Chinese Tennis Association and two from Tennis Australia. The eight-player qualifying draw has four direct entries and four more wild cards, again two from each body. The 2025 men’s draw used the same 16-player structure.
For the 2025 edition, entry was open to men and women from the Asia-Pacific region, Australians excepted, ranked 105 or lower. The ranking line keeps the event for players outside the direct-entry places. Those who miss out can still try Grand Slam qualifying in January.
Doubles acceptance uses the WTA rankings of 23 November, taking the better of each player’s singles or doubles ranking. Seeding uses doubles rankings only.
The 2026 Women’s Entry List
Tennis Australia’s final women’s singles acceptance list, issued on 2 November, has eight direct entries into the main draw [UNVERIFIED: names and WTA rankings read from the Tennis Australia acceptance-list PDF through a text summariser; check spellings and rankings against the PDF]:
- Han Shi (China), No. 148
- Mai Hontama (Japan), No. 160
- Joanna Garland (Chinese Taipei), No. 196
- Yexin Ma (China), No. 207
- Xiaodi You (China), No. 215
- Zhuoxuan Bai (China), No. 229
- Xinyu Gao (China), No. 231
- Hiromi Abe (Japan), No. 246
Sara Saito and Kyoka Okamura of Japan and Fangran Tian and Yufei Ren of China are the direct entries into qualifying. En-Shuo Liang of Chinese Taipei, last year’s women’s runner-up, has withdrawn. The wild cards had not been named, and the men’s acceptance list was not available when this guide was written.
How It Fits Among the Australian Open Wild Cards
Each Australian Open singles main draw has eight wild cards, and all eight must be named before the draw is made. The play-off winner’s place is one of them. Two more go through reciprocal arrangements: the French Tennis Federation nominates a French player and the USTA nominates an American, and in return an Australian man and woman receive main-draw wild cards at Roland Garros and the US Open. The rest are discretionary and most often go to Australians.
The American place is decided on court too. For 2027 the USTA’s Australian Open Wild Card Challenge goes to the American woman with the most ranking points from her best three hard-court or carpet events at W35 level or higher in the five weeks from the week of 5 October, and to the American man with the most points from his best four events at M25 level or higher from the week of 19 October to the week of 16 November. It works like the US Open Wild Card Challenge, which runs in the other direction in the summer.
Australians have their own route. For the 2026 Australian Open, a points race across Australian Pro Tour events in Brisbane, Sydney and Playford in November 2025 produced main-draw wild cards for James Duckworth and Emerson Jones, and the race’s place came out of the discretionary allocation. A separate race across three Brisbane events in July 2026 offered qualifying wild cards for 2027. In 2025 the qualifying draw had nine wild cards of its own.
Past Winners Who Made the Most of It
The most famous wild card the play-off has produced belongs to Denis Istomin. He won the 2016 play-off and, in the second round of the 2017 Australian Open, beat Novak Djokovic.
A year later, in Zhuhai, Xinyu Wang won the women’s event at 16, coming from a set down to beat Abigail Tere-Apisah of Papua New Guinea 4-6, 7-5, 6-4. “It’s probably the most important day in my life so far,” she said. Soonwoo Kwon, the men’s top seed, beat Zhe Li 6-1, 6-1 and then said: “I want to play Roger Federer in the first round.”
Kasidit Samrej, who won the November 2024 play-off with Shuai Zhang, had never played at a Grand Slam venue, not even in qualifying, before his wild card. In the first round of the 2025 Australian Open he took Daniil Medvedev, the fifth seed, to five sets.
Last Year’s Finals
The 2025 finals were played on 29 November in Chengdu. Zarina Diyas of Kazakhstan, the seventh seed, beat En-Shuo Liang 6-3, 6-4 without dropping a set all week. “Honestly, this is unbelievable. I don’t believe it yet,” Diyas said.
The men’s title went to the top seed, Yunchaokete Bu of China, who beat Akira Santillan of Japan 6-4, 6-2. “It was a long year, I’m very tired,” Bu said.
Selected Singles Champions
| Played | For | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 2025, Chengdu | AO 2026 | Yunchaokete Bu | Zarina Diyas |
| Nov 2024, Chengdu | AO 2025 | Kasidit Samrej | Shuai Zhang |
| 2017, Zhuhai | AO 2018 | Soonwoo Kwon | Xinyu Wang |
| 2016 | AO 2017 | Denis Istomin | — |
Where It Sits in the Calendar
The play-off falls in the last weeks of the season, after the tour finals and during what the WTA rulebook calls the Off Season. Our tennis off-season explainer sets out how short the break between seasons is. Chengdu also hosts an ATP tour event; our Chengdu Open guide covers it.
The winners next appear in Melbourne. The 2027 Australian Open runs from 11 to 31 January, with an Opening Week from 11 to 16 January and the main draw starting on Sunday 17 January. Players on the Challenger circuit who win the play-off skip the qualifying event entirely. Our guide to how the Australian Open draw works explains where a wild card lands, and the Australian Open prize money guide shows what a first-round place is worth. The United Cup, from 1 to 10 January in Perth and Sydney, opens the season before it.
A wild card bypasses the ranking cut-off for one event only.
Season Snapshot — 8 November 2026
- 2026 edition: Chengdu, singles 23–28 November, doubles 24–27 November. Venue not yet confirmed.
- Women’s singles acceptance list final as of 2 November. Wild cards and the men’s list still to come.
- USTA Australian Open Wild Card Challenge: the women’s window closed with events in the week of 2 November; the men’s window runs to the week of 16 November.
- Defending champions: Yunchaokete Bu and Zarina Diyas.
This snapshot is dated and will change. The career record above does not.
