The WTA are far from a perfect organisation, but they have taken great strides forward in recent years.
After all, the way in which they market their players has improved vastly, helping make the campaign for equal pay across the ATP and WTA tours a far easier task.
That being said, they are still liable when it comes to making errors, with their failures often being rather high profile.
Ironically, their latest mistake has been brutally exposed by their two biggest stars, with Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka making them look foolish.
Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka headline Dubai Open withdrawals
As a much-maligned topic that almost always drives debate, the tennis schedule remains one of the sport’s most controversial topics.
After all, no matter how much the players call for a solution, one seemingly never comes.
Is some of the tennis schedule irrelevant?
There are tiny changes made to try to alleviate pressure, but the physical demands of these superstar athletes are ludicrous.
And yet, when the likes of Swiatek and Sabalenka withdraw from events like the Dubai Tennis Championships to protect their bodies, they are lambasted.
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to high-profile withdrawals that this tournament has suffered, with Victoria Mboko, Karolina Muchova, Qinwen Zheng, and Maria Sakkari all following suit, to name just a few.
Perhaps, instead of criticising the players, the WTA should look to make a change to their schedule that would prevent their prized assets from feeling pressured.
The WTA’s ridiculous scheduling exposed
Whilst the tennis schedule is almost always being criticised, this particular run of tournaments makes no sense at all.
It takes the WTA’s best players and expects them to start their season with a Grand Slam tournament followed by back-to-back WTA 1000 events, all of which demand the absolute best from whoever goes on to win them.
If you were in charge of tennis, what is the first rule you would change?
Even the fittest of these superhuman athletes cannot be expected to compete so relentlessly, and so withdrawals were definitely expected.
What makes this even more ludicrous is that the Dubai Open director has called for Sabalenka and Swiatek to be sanctioned for refusing to play in his event.
It is not the players’ fault for wanting to protect their bodies, and they should not be lambasted for doing so. It’s the fault of the WTA for organising the calendar in such a nonsensical way.
