The four-time Grand Slam champion is seeded one for the tournament, with American Coco Gauff the second seed – both players earn a bye to the second round due to their ranking.

Seven of the world's top 10 will be in attendance – Elena Rybakina, Ons Jabeur, Zheng Qinwen, Markéta Vondroušová and Maria Sakkari are the other five members of the world's elite.

Despite her status as the tournament's top seed, Świątek has not enjoyed her best form to start the 2024 season. She exited in the third round of the Australian Open to Linda Nosková and did not play in this week's WTA 500 Abu Dhabi Open.

However, the Polish star lost just six games in four matches during last season's Qatar Open and has not lost a set at the venue since the second round of the 2022 tournament.

Perhaps the form name in the field is Latvia's Jeļena Ostapenko. The eighth seed has won two WTA events in 2024 – the WTA 500 Adelaide International and WTA 500 Linz Open. In addition, she reached quarter-final of the WTA 500 Brisbane International, but did withdraw from this week's Abu Dhabi Open.

Another contender will be world number five Elena Rybakina, who this week reached the last four of the Abu Dhabi Open. She claimed the Brisbane International title in early January and was a quarter-finalist at the Adelaide International a week later. However, she exited in the second round of the Australian Open.

Other potential challenger include three-time Grand Slam finalist Jabeur, US Open champion Gauff, Australian Open runner-up Qinwen and world number nine Sakkari.

There are also several former top 10 talents in the draw including France's Caroline Garcia, Ukraine's Elina Svitolina and Czechia's Barbora Krejčíková.