2016 Dubai Tennis Championships – Women's singles

Sara Errani defeated Barbora Strýcová in the final, 6–0, 6–2 to win the women's singles tennis title at the 2016 Dubai Tennis Championships.

Simona Halep was the defending champion, but lost to Ana Ivanovic in the second round.

This was the first time at either a WTA Tour or ATP Tour event that all seeded players lost their opening match.

Seeds
The top four seeds received a bye into the second round. • #🇷🇴 Simona Halep (second round)

• #🇪🇸 Garbiñe Muguruza (second round)

• #🇪🇸 Carla Suárez Navarro (second round)

• #🇨🇿 Petra Kvitová (second round)

• # Belinda Bencic (first round)

• #🇨🇿 Karolína Plíšková (first round)

• #🇮🇹 Roberta Vinci (first round)

• #🇷🇺 Svetlana Kuznetsova (first round)

Seeds
• # 🇺🇸 Varvara Lepchenko (qualifying competition)

• # 🇩🇪 Anna-Lena Friedsam (qualifying competition)

• # 🇯🇵 Nao Hibino (first round)

• # 🇨🇿 Denisa Allertová (qualifying competition)

• # 🇰🇿 Zarina Diyas (first round)

• # 🇨🇳 Zheng Saisai (qualified)

• # 🇨🇿 Lucie Hradecká (withdrew due to change of schedule)

• # 🇺🇦 Kateryna Bondarenko (second round)

• # 🇩🇪 Carina Witthöft (first round)

Qualifiers
• # 🇨🇳 Zheng Saisai

• # 🇧🇬 Tsvetana Pironkova

• # 🇸🇰 Jana Čepelová

• # 🇰🇿 Yaroslava Shvedova