Right after the first WTA Masters 1,000 of the season, the Qatar Open, in which Karolina Muchova defeated the Canadian Victoria Mboko, who nevertheless entered the top 10 for the first time in her career, the second Masters of the year, Dubai Tennis Championships, starts today with the first batch of round of 32 matches.
Elena Rybakina, Amanda Anisimova, Coco Gauff, Jessica Pegula, and Mirra Andreeva are the top seeded players of the tournament, which suffers several absences, including recent withdrawals from Mboko and Muchova, due to their recent Doha final, but also the noticeable absences of World No. 1 and 2 Aryna Sabalenka (who also missed the Qatar Open) and Iga Swiatek, as well as Naomi Osaka and Madison Keys.
The series of withdrawals has led to complaints from Salah Tahlak, Director of Dubai Tennis Championship, who will ask WTA for harder punishments on tennis player who missed those events, questioning their reasons to miss the tournaments. "The reasons for withdrawal were a bit strange. Iga said she wasn't mentally ready to compete, while Sabalenka said she has some minor injuries", Tahlak told The National on Saturday (via GulfNews). "I think there should be a harsher punishment on the players, not just fines, they should be docked ranking points."
"I even asked the doctor, what is the injury? He said it's a minor injury, not one that would force her to withdraw from the tournament. And for Iga, I asked, 'Isn't this a strange decision?'", a disappointed Tahlak said, after losing the best two players in the women's tennis circuit.
Dubai Tennis Championships director proposes point deduction instead of fines
Sabalenka, who was stunned by Elena Rybakina at the Australian Open final last month, has not played since January 31. It should not come as a surprise, as the Belarusian made headlines earlier this year when she said she didn't mind risking sanctions as she intentionally will skip some mandatory events. "The rules are quite tricky with mandatory events, but I'm still skipping a couple events in order to protect my body, because I struggled a lot last season", Sabalenka said in January.
But Tahlak said last weekend that monetary fines won't do much, and he feels WTA should deduct points from the players. "Many years ago, Serena Williams withdrew and was fined $100,000. But what is $100,000? She would play someplace else and make $1,000,000."
"We have a meeting coming up in Rome and I want to shed light on this issue. We have a representative on behalf of the international group to speak for us with the WTA. Because it's a shame that we're spending these huge amounts to upgrade our facilities and in the end the players are the main part."
The Dubai Tennis Championships, second WTA Masters 1000 of the year, will continue until Saturday, February 21.