World No 1 Aryna Sabalenka and world No 2 Iga Swiatek have both withdrawn from the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, one of the biggest tournaments on the WTA’s calendar, to deepen the row over the sport’s schedule.
Both Sabalenka and Swiatek signalled around the Australian Open that they would prepared to be penalised for skipping WTA 1000 tournaments, following criticism over the schedule of events. Sabalenka branded the season as “insane” in January.
Under WTA rules, top women’s players are obliged to compete in all four grand slams and10 WTA 1000 tournaments as well as at least six WTA 500 events. The punishment for missing events ranges from rankings points deductions to fines.
An statement from the tournament announced Sabalenka and Swiatek’s withdrawals at the same time on Friday, ahead of the start of the event on Sunday 15 February. It is the second WTA 1000 event of the season and the rest of the world’s top-10 will be competing.
Sabalenka reached the Australian Open final last month, where she lost to Elena Rybakina. The Belarusian, who also missed Qatar Open and has not played since Melbourne, said she was “not feeling 100 per cent”.
Swiatek, who did compete in Qatar and was beaten by Maria Sakkari in the quarter-finals on Thursday, said she was pulling out of Dubai “due to a change of schedule” and confirmed her next event would be Indian Wells in March.
Swiatek said after her Australian Open quarter-final defeat to Elena Rybakina that she would be prepared to miss some WTA 1000 tournaments in order to fix some technical issues that she was unable to address during the off-season.
“I don’t feel it’s possible to do that in the short period of time that we have between tournaments,” Swiatek said. “So last year I had trouble with making this kind of decision, but this year I’m trying to change my approach. So I think we’ll skip some 1000 tournaments.
“I was never in this position, so I don’t know what the result will be, but I think it’s necessary, because if you want to improve your game, unless I want to stay the same and just prepare for every tournament, then I can do that as well. I’ll play well, but if I want to improve something, it will be nice to have some time. Unfortunately, calendar doesn’t give that.”
Speaking before the Australian Open, Sabalenka said: “The rules are quite tricky with mandatory events, but I’m still skipping a couple of events in order to protect my body, because I struggled a lot last season.
“Even though the results were really consistent, some of the tournaments I had been playing completely sick or I’ve been really exhausted from overplaying. This season, we will try to manage it a little bit better, even though they are going to fine me by the end of the season.
“But it’s tricky to do that. You cannot skip 1000 events. It’s really tricky, and I think that’s insane what they do. I think they just follow their interests, but they’re not focusing on protecting all of us.”
The Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships said: “We are sorry that Aryna and Iga have both withdrawn from this year’s tournament. They both have huge amounts of followers here in Dubai, and we were looking forward to seeing them competing on our courts once again. We wish them continued success for the season and look forward to seeing them back in Dubai next year.”
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The WTA was contacted for comment
