Professional tennis players are expected to perform at top level at all times, but there are a lot of external factors that hamper their ability to show their best, a major one being tight scheduling. As many as three players who reached the semifinals of Abu Dhabi last week have lost in the first round of this week’s Qatar TotalEnergies Open, in straight sets. Moreover, Cluj-Napoca champion Karolina Pliskova slept for just four hours ahead of her Doha opener.
Less than 24 hours after losing the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Open final to Elena Rybakina 6-1 6-4, Daria Kasatkina played her first-round match at the Qatar Open and lost it in straight sets to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, 6-2 7-6(2).
After reaching Sunday’s Abu Dhabi final, Kasatkina criticized the WTA scheduling that made her play her first-round match in Doha on Monday:
I have a question, I don’t know to who, to WTA or the tournaments, like, are you guys trying to make players die, or to get injured often? I might have to fly Monday and step on the court the same day, after playing five matches here at the highest level. So I’m sorry but that’s something we have to talk about and consider.
Similarly, Beatriz Haddad Maia, who…
