WTA Dubai Tournament Schedule

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WTA Dubai 2020 Seeds

WTA Dubai Players 2020

Twice voted the WTA Tour’s Premier-5 tournament of the year, the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships never has any trouble in attracting a star-studded field and the 2020 edition is no exception, with two-thirds of the world’s top 20 players scheduled to appear when the tournament takes place from 17-22 February.

World no. 1 Ashleigh Barty and US Open champion Bianca Andreescu have both been forced to pull out of the 2020 Dubai Championships due to injury but the field remains incredibly strong – especially with the addition of Kim Clijsters, the four-time Grand Slam champion who retired in 2013 but will return to competitive tennis at WTA Dubai 2020.

Here are some of the top players scheduled to appear at the 2020 Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.

Simona Halep

One of three former champions in the 2020 Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships draw, Halep beat Pliskova to win the title in 2015 and the world no. 2 will lead the field once more this year.

With 19 WTA Tour singles titles to her credit, Halep has spent 64 weeks ranked as the WTA’s world no. 1. The Romanian made French Open finals in 2014 and 2017 and the Australian Open final in 2018 before breaking through to become a Grand Slam champion at the 2018 French Open, going on to win Wimbledon in 2019. Halep recently featured in the semifinals of the Australian Open.

Karolina Pliskova

World no. 3 Pliskova hopes to improve on her runner-up finish at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships in 2015, when she lost to Simona Halep in the final.

Ranked as high as world no. 1 in 2017, Pliskova – known as the ‘ace queen’ for her booming serve, helped by her six-foot height – has won 16 WTA Tour titles in her career, including Premier-5 titles in Cincinnati (2016), Doha (2017) and Rome (2019). A US Open finalist in 2016, Pliskova has already picked up a title in 2020, successfully defending her title at the Brisbane International to start the season.

Elina Svitolina

Svitolina won back-to-back WTA Dubai titles in 2017-18, defeating Caroline Wozniacki and Daria Kasatkina in respective finals. Her winning streak in Dubai was snapped by Belinda Bencic in the 2019 semi-finals.

The Ukrainian made back-to-back Grand Slam semi-finals at Wimbledon and the US Open in 2019 and triumphed at the season-ending WTA Finals in 2018. Currently ranked world no. 4, Svitolina took a wildcard into the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships where she will be hoping to join Venus Williams and Justine Henin as the only women to have won three or more titles in Dubai.

Belinda Bencic

A teenage phenomenon who lost her way for a while due to injury, Switzerland’s Bencic put together a spectacular run to the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships title, the joint-biggest of her career, in 2019.

The ‘new Swiss Miss’ defied her unseeded status and defeated four top-10 players in a row, including former champions Svitolina and Halep, to become the first Swiss champion in Dubai since Martina Hingis in 2001. Bencic went on to reach the semifinals of the US Open, Indian Wells, Madrid and the WTA Finals in 2019, claiming the title in Moscow to boot, and returns to defend her WTA Dubai title at a career-high ranking of world no. 5.

Sofia Kenin

Named the WTA’s Most Improved Player in 2019, a season during which she won a trio of titles and shot up the rankings, Sofia ‘Sonya’ Kenin showed just how improved she was as she stunned the world by claiming her maiden major title at the Australian Open in January 2020.

The 22-year-old American, who had never made the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam before, defeated world no. 1 Ashleigh Barty in the semifinals and two-time major winner Garbine Muguruza in the final in Melbourne to establish herself as a bright new star in women’s tennis. Kenin made the round of 16 in Dubai on her debut in 2019 and will hope to go even deeper in 2020.

Kim Clijsters

As glittering as the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships field is in 2020, it received a further boost when Clijsters announced that she would be making her return to professional tennis at the tournament when it begins on Monday 17 February.

Former world no. 1 Clijsters reached four Grand Slam finals in 2001-4 before winning her maiden major title in 2005 at the US Open, Clijsters retired in 2006 to start a family but returned to competition with daughter Jada in tow in 2009 and began arguably the most successful phase of her career, winning back-to-back US Open titles in 2009-10 and the Australian Open in 2011.

Clijsters retired for the second time in 2012, but startled the world with her announcement in late 2019 that she hoped to return to the WTA Tour in 2020.

‘The love for the sport is obviously still there. I don’t feel like I need to prove anything, but I want to challenge myself and I want to be strong again,’ Clijsters said at the time.

The only mother to hold the no. 1 ranking since computer rankings began, the 36-year-old mother of three will be making her WTA Dubai debut as well as playing her first match since the 2012 US Open.

About the WTA Dubai Championships

The Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships is half of the WTA Tour’s short but significant sojourn in the Middle East in February, forming a double bill with the Qatar Total Open in Doha which reliably attracts a high proportion of the world’s best players. The WTA Dubai event precedes a men’s 500 event held in the same location.

Global hub Dubai, the largest city in the United Arab Emirates, hosts the WTA Tour’s finest at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Centre, formerly known as the Aviation Club and featuring the 5,000-set Dubai Duty Free Tennis Stadium, also a popular music venue.

First played in 2001, WTA Dubai is under the patronage of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai. The inaugural Premier event in 2001 was won by Martina Hingis, who inaugurated a tradition of the cream of women’s tennis lifting the trophy in Dubai, where the winners’ list reads like a who’s who of WTA Tour stars over the past 15 years.

Amelie Mauresmo (2002), Lindsay Davenport (2005) and Elena Dementieva (2008) were among the winners in the first seven years of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship’s existence, with Monica Seles (2003), Svetlana Kuznetsova (2004, 2008) and Maria Sharapova (2006) all featuring in the finals, but the acknowledged queen of the tournament was seven-time Grand Slam champion Justine Henin, who still holds the record for the most WTA Dubai titles, winning in 2003 (d. Seles), 2004 (d. Kuznetsova), 2006 (d. Sharapova) and 2007 (d. Mauresmo).

The tournament was upgraded to Premier 5 status in 2009 and Venus Williams won back-to-back titles, defeating Virginie Razzano and Victoria Azarenka, before her reign was ended in 2011 by Caroline Wozniacki who overcame Kuznetsova in her third final appearance.

Returned to Premier status in 2012, Agnieszka Radwanska and two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova took the next two titles before Williams returned to the winner’s circle in Dubai in sensational style, defeating Ana Ivanovic, Flavia Pennetta, Wozniacki and Alize Cornet to take the title.

The Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship currently shifts between Premier and Premier-5 level, alternating annually with the Qatar Open in Doha. Taking its turn as a Premier-5 in 2015, Dubai crowned a new champion as 2014 French Open runner-up Simona Halep captured the biggest title of her career so far. With defending champion Venus Williams falling in the third round, Halep overcame Ekaterina Makarova, Wozniacki and the big-serving Czech Karolina Pliskova to claim the crown. Sara Errani won the title in 2016, while Elina Svitolina took down Caroline Wozniacki in the 2017 final to claim her first Premier-5 title.

Svitolina became the third woman in the history of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships to win back-to-back titles when she successfully defended her title in 2018, defeating Angelique Kerber in the semifinals for the second straight year and going on to beat rising Russian Daria Kasatkina in the final.

Svitolina’s winning streak in Dubai extended to 12 matches before it was snapped by Belinda Bencic in the semifinals of the 2019 Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships. Bencic, whose promising young career had been stalled by injury, put together a sensational run, beating four top-10 players in consecutive rounds including Simona Halep in the final to become the first Swiss player since Martina Hingis in 2001 to claim the title.

Bencic returns to defend her WTA Dubai title in 2020, joined by former champions Halep and Svitolina and a stellar field including Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin, world no. 3 Karolina Pliskova and Kim Clijsters, the four-time Grand Slam champion who has chosen Dubai as the stage for her return to professional tennis after retiring in 2012.

WTA Dubai Tournament Information