Aryna Sabalenka has snapped back at the Dubai Tennis Championships tournament director following his calls for \u201charsher punishments\u201d for players who withdraw from events at the last minute.<\/p>\n
World No 1 Sabalenka<\/a> and six-time Grand Slam winner Iga Swiatek skipped this year\u2019s WTA 1000 tournament in the United Arab Emirates with the pair announcing their intention to miss the tournament on the eve of the draw.<\/p>\n But they were not the only two women\u2019s stars who didn\u2019t feature in Dubai this year, as a total of 16 players who were on the main draw entry list pulled out of the tournament, leaving organisers upset.<\/p>\n And tournament director Salah Tahlak<\/a> was unimpressed, particularly with Sabalenka and Swiatek, as he told The National: \u201cIt was an unfortunate surprise [on Friday] to get news of the withdrawal of Aryna and Iga. And the reasons for withdrawal were a bit strange<\/p>\n \u201cIga said she wasn\u2019t mentally ready to compete, while Sabalenka said she has some minor injuries.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I don\u2019t know. I think there should be a harsher punishment on the players [for withdrawing], not just fines, they should be docked ranking points.\u201d<\/p>\n WTA Miami Open Predictions: Sabalenka & Rybakina rivalry continues, Swiatek faces more disappointment<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n WTA Rankings: Elena Rybakina and every woman to peak at world No 2<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n However, Sabalenka and Swiatek were defended by former world No 1 Andy Roddick<\/a> and reigning French Open champion Coco Gauff with the latter saying players skip events in order to avoid burnout<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sabalenka also missed the Qatar Open following her runners-up finish to Elena Rybakina at the Australian Open and only made her return at the Indian Wells Open at the beginning of March, but she went all the way to win the first leg of the Sunshine Double.<\/p>\n Leg two takes place in Miami this week and the four-time Grand Slam winner was asked about Tahlak\u2019s comments and replied: \u201cI think it\u2019s ridiculous. I don\u2019t think he showed himself in the best way possible.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, it\u2019s actually so sad to see \u200bthat the tournament directors and \u200cthe tournaments are not protecting us as players. They just care about their (sales), about their tournament, and that\u2019s it.<\/p>\n \u201cHis comment was ridiculous. I\u2019m not sure if I ever want to go there after his comment. For me it\u2019s too \u200cmuch.\u201d<\/p>\n Players have long complained about the demanding tennis schedule and Sabalenka had in the past suggested she could be forced to skip certain events in order to avoid burnout.<\/p>\n \u201cGoing into this season, we decided \u2026 to prioritise my \u2060health and make sure we have these little gaps in the schedule where I can reset, recharge, work and be better prepared for \u200cbigger tournaments,\u201d the reigning US Open champion said.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like the scheduling is going crazy and that\u2019s why you see so many players injured, always \u200btaped and not delivering the best quality matches because it\u2019s almost impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Aryna Sabalenka sends Dubai boycott warning \u2013 \u2018I\u2019m not sure if I ever want to go there\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Aryna Sabalenka has snapped back at the Dubai Tennis Championships tournament director following his calls for \u201charsher punishments\u201d for players who withdraw from events at the last minute. World No 1 Sabalenka and six-time Grand Slam winner Iga Swiatek skipped this year\u2019s WTA 1000 tournament in the United Arab Emirates with the pair announcing their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1894\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}WTA Features<\/h2>\n