DUBAI: The draw for the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships’ WTA 1000 tournament took place on Saturday, determining the pathway to the final for the tournament’s star-filled field.
This year’s line-up features 16 of the world’s top 20, including Australian Open winner Elena Rybakina, World No.5 Coco Gauff, and last year’s history-making Dubai champion Mirra Andreeva.
Taking place at a renovated Dubai Duty Free Tennis Stadium, the 26th edition of the city’s women’s showpiece will run from Feb. 15-24 and boasts six Grand Slam singles winners sharing a collective nine titles between them.
While the top eight seeds all received first-round byes, top seed and World No. 3 Rybakina — triumphant in Melbourne just a few weeks ago — is on course for a second-round meeting with German Tatjana Maria. On the other half of the draw, No. 2 seed Amanda Anisimova could face two-time Grand Slam winner Barbora Krejcikova — a winner here in 2023 — in the round of 32, should the latter safely negotiate her first-round tie with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
Rybakina’s half of the draw also features the likes of 2023 US Open champion Gauff (No. 3 seed), World No. 9 Elina Svitolina (No. 7 seed), 2017 French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko (No. 10 seed), British No. 1 Emma Raducanu and rising star Alexandra Eala of the Philippines – who will face Lucky Loser Hailey Baptiste of the US to progress to a second-round tie with 2024 Dubai winner Jasmine Paolini.
Eala, who attended the draw and is sure to attract huge Filipino support when she starts her campaign on Sunday at 7 p.m. (UAE) on Centre Court, said: “The atmosphere changes a lot when there’s so many excited people. It means a lot for me, because it makes me feel like I’m home when I’m traveling for so many weeks of the year. And I think that feeling is reciprocated for a lot of the overseas Filipino workers. I know there’s a huge population of them here in the Middle East, so it means a lot for people to see themselves in other people. That’s what makes it special here.”
The Kabayan community will also have the chance to watch Leylah Fernandez, the Canadian of Filipino descent, on Centre Court when she meets No. 13 seed Liudmila Samsonova earlier in the afternoon.
On the opposite side of the draw, as well as the WTA’s youngest 1000 winner Andreeva and World No. 6 Jessica Pegula, Greek star Maria Sakkari will follow up her semifinal appearance in Doha last week with an opening round match against No. 16 seed Iva Jovic. This year’s Dubai tournament marks Jovic’s first appearance in the Middle East, and she is already impressed by what she has seen — which includes plenty of the emirate, having taken in the panoramic city views afforded from atop the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa.
“I didn’t get to see a tonne of (Maria) play in Doha, so I’m going to talk to my coach and we’ll do some scouting,” said the 18-year-old American. “It’s never easy playing someone who is going into the week with a lot of confidence and she’s definitely in the match zone, but I’m going to do everything I can. I think I’ve prepared very well. I’ve worked hard for the last couple of weeks going into the start of the year. It’ll be tricky, but that’s what we love.
“The start of WTA week is always exciting for us because it gives us an opportunity to showcase some of the improvements that we have done in the past year,” said Ramesh Cidambi, managing director, Dubai Duty Free and chair of the Tournament Organizing Committee.
He also confirmed a new Court One with a 2,000-seat capacity, as well as an expanded Tennis Village. “This is phase one of the upgrade we are doing to the site and as soon as this tournament is over, we will start working on the expansion of the Centre Court to add another 2,500 seats and have a 7,500-capacity Centre Court.”
The 26th edition of the annual WTA event, which takes place from Feb. 15-21, features 16 of the top 20 ranked female players in the world and 33 of the top 40. It will be followed by the emirate’s annual ATP 500 men’s tournament from Feb. 23-28.
