“Actually, it’s the second Masters where the last qualified participant can aim for an awful lot of points, and the player right behind her can’t. It’s completely incomprehensible to me,” says Petr Pála, the Czech captain in the Billie Jean King Cup. In addition, this year’s plans can disrupt his plans even more due to the participation of Barbora Krejčíková.
She is playing in China this week in a group with Poland’s Linette and Russia’s Kasatkin. However, the Tournament of Champions starts already on Sunday in Cancún, 15 thousand kilometers away, where she is to compete with Kateřina Siniaková in doubles and, in addition, to be the second substitute for singles. And the very next week after the end of the competition in Mexico, the Czechs are to play in the final BJKC tournament, less than 8 thousand kilometers away in Seville. In what condition did Krejčíková and spol. will arrive, it is difficult to estimate.
In addition, Marie Bouzková (with the Spaniard Sorribesová) is to play doubles in China, whom Pála contacted just in case one of the players nominated for Sevilla was injured.
Since the US Open, the other two TM participants, Wimbledon winner Markéta Vondroušová (hand) and Roland Garros finalist Karolína Muchová (wrist), have basically not played. She flies to Cancun without properly training with the racket. The finalist from Hong Kong and the winner from Nanchang Siniaková has been competing with a bandaged left thigh for the last few weeks.
“The players fly left, right. The ITF and WTA are giving them terrible drops,” Pála complained.
“Our tennis players just have to hope that the other players are not much better off. However, none of the top female tennis players played the entire season without injury. Even better is the Belarusian Sabalenková, but she probably has muscles of steel,” noted Sport.cz expert Jan Kukal.
Some players therefore prefer to skip the Elite Trophy. Maria Sakkariová will rather fly straight to Mexico as a substitute. Petra Kvitová (winner from 2016) and Switzerland’s Belinda Bencicová also dropped the tournament from their schedule, announcing that she wanted to focus on the BJKC.
“It is basically impossible to play all the planned tournaments in a year,” admits Kukal.
It was not played in China, first because it was the focus of covid and then because of the scandal surrounding Peng Shuai, which accused the former vice-premier of forcing her to have sex, then canceled everything and stopped communicating completely for some time. However, the boycott did not succeed and the Chinese money began to disappear from the WTA.
Its boss Steve Simon thus resigned to ethical principles and opened his arms to China again. “We have come to the conclusion that we will never fully secure our goals and it will be our players and tournaments who will ultimately pay an extraordinary price for their sacrifices,” he said.
But the return behind the Chinese wall also means that the itinerary of the leading female tennis players at the end of the season thickened to unprecedented positions. In the case of Krejčíková, it is a complete extreme.
2023-10-23 18:25:36
#China #Mexico #Seville #Krejčíková #fly #program #season #extreme #Sport.cz
