The Toray Pan Pacific Open is a WTA 500 tournament played on outdoor hard courts in Tokyo. First held in 1973, it is one of the premier events of the Asian swing, according to the WTA. The 2026 edition runs from Monday, 26 October to Sunday, 1 November, and it is the final WTA 500 of the season, according to the WTA.
Dates and Schedule
First-round matches begin on Monday, 26 October. The singles and doubles finals are both scheduled for Sunday, 1 November, according to the WTA. Japan’s other WTA event is covered in the Japan Women’s Open guide.
Draw Format
The singles draw has 28 players and the doubles draw 16 teams. The WTA lists the singles field as 17 direct entrants, six qualifiers, four wild cards and one special exempt place. The top four seeds receive byes into the second round. How the tier works is covered in WTA 500 explained.
Points and Prize Money
The champion earns 500 ranking points and $185,500, according to the WTA. The tournament’s total financial commitment is listed by the WTA at $1,206,446.
The 2026 Field
World No. 1 Elena Rybakina will be the top seed, according to the WTA. Its field announcement on 1 October also listed Top 10 players Jessica Pegula, Elina Svitolina, Iga Swiatek and Marta Kostyuk.
Defending champion Belinda Bencic is entered with Iva Jovic, Diana Shnaider, Sorana Cirstea, Naomi Osaka, Alexandra Eala, Elise Mertens and Jasmine Paolini. The WTA noted that Tokyo could be the final tournament of Cirstea’s career. The last four direct entrants were Maja Chwalinska, Anna Kalinskaya, Leylah Fernandez and Ekaterina Alexandrova, and the first four alternates were Ann Li, Diane Parry, Maria Sakkari and Nikola Bartunkova.
Entry lists change through withdrawals in the final weeks of the season. The names above are the WTA’s published field and are not final until the draw is made.
What Is at Stake
As the last WTA 500 of the year, Tokyo can move the final places in the race for the WTA Finals. When the field was announced, Svitolina and Karolina Muchova were sixth and seventh on the Race leaderboard, Linda Noskova was eighth, and Kostyuk and Swiatek were ninth and 10th, according to the WTA. Because Noskova has won a Grand Slam title this season, she would have to finish below No. 20 in the Race to miss out. That rule, and how the eight places are filled, is set out in WTA Finals qualification explained.
Rybakina is also playing for the year-end No. 1 ranking. She won two matches in Tokyo last year before withdrawing from the semifinals with back pain.
Venue
The 2024 tournament was played at the Ariake Coliseum, where Zheng Qinwen won the final mostly under a closed roof after two brief rain delays in the opening four games, according to the WTA.
Selected Past Champions
- 2025 — Belinda Bencic def. Linda Noskova
- 2024 — Zheng Qinwen def. Sofia Kenin, 7-6(5), 6-3
- 2023 — Veronika Kudermetova def. Jessica Pegula [UNVERIFIED: 2023 result taken from a WTA article headline cited elsewhere; confirm on the WTA past winners page]
- 2022 — Liudmila Samsonova def. Zheng Qinwen
- 2019 — Naomi Osaka
- 2015 — Agnieszka Radwanska def. Belinda Bencic
Tokyo 2026 will be Bencic’s seventh appearance at the tournament. She made her debut in 2013 and lost the 2015 final to Radwanska; last year she beat Varvara Gracheva, Muchova and Sofia Kenin before beating Noskova in the final. Osaka, the 2019 champion, also reached the final in 2016 and 2018. Zheng’s 2024 title came two years after she lost the 2022 final to Samsonova, her first career WTA final.
How to Watch
Broadcast rights for WTA events vary by country. The WTA keeps a regional broadcaster list on its where to watch page, and the draw, order of play and live scores are published on the WTA tournament page.
