Top women’s tennis players like Coco Gauff, Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek decided to skip the recently-concluded Guadalajara Open. The tennis stars missed the tournament citing tight schedules but the WTA has had to pay the price for it. The WTA will be forced to pay out a fine of $350K to the tournament. This is about 12% of the total prize money for the tournament, which was $2.8 million.
Scheduling of tournaments has become a contentious issue in the sport in recent times. The reason for the top women’s players to miss the Guadalajara Open was again tight scheduling, which would not allow the players to compete at their best.
WTA to pay up as top stars ditch the Guadalajara Open
The Guadalajara Open announced a $2.8 million prize money for the tournament. However, even after such a huge prize money pool, many star players decided to withdraw from the competition. Coco Gauff, Iga Swiatek, and Aryna Sabalenka are the leading players in the WTA right now, and their failure to turn up to the competition has left fans disappointed.
The WTA had to pay the Guadalajara Open a huge fine as more than 4 of the top 10 players of the WTA failed to feature in the tournament. Out of the top 10 players, only Ons Jabeur, Maria Sakkari and Caroline Garcia are in the draw for the tournament. Iga Swiatek, Jessica Pegula, Elena Rybakina, and Coco Gauff withdrew from the tournament before the draw was made. Markéta Vondroušová and Karolina Muchova withdrew too, citing workload issues.
The severity of this charge is apparent by the fact that it amounts to about 12% of the total prize money available at the Guadalajara Open. Despite having a large payout, the absence of these marquee players had a significant impact on the tournament.
Nevertheless, it worked out well for Maria Sakkari, who won her first Masters 1000 title of her career. Sakkari beat Caroline Dolehide 7-5, 6-3 and took home a cool paycheck of $454,500. Sakkari also bagged 900 points, that helped her climb from 9th to the 6th place in the WTA rankings.
Scheduling problems for the WTA
The absence of top players from the Guadalajara Open highlights the WTA’s continued scheduling concerns. A lot of players have openly voiced their displeasure about the scheduling and the number of players withdrawing from the tournaments is at an all-time high.
Another upcoming problem for the women’s players could arise during the WTA Finals. The WTA Finals will take place in Cancun in Mexico, which will be another big trip for the players. The Billie Jean King Cup will be held around the same time as the WTA Final. This will add more workload to the already busy schedule of the players.
