WTA disorder reaches new low with Finals in Cancun

Iga Swiatek lifted the WTA Finals trophy after beating Jessica Pegula 6-1, 6-0 in 59 minutes. It lifted her to the top of the women’s tennis rankings – the spot she had relinquished after the US Open. These two were engaged in a competitive battle the last time they met in Montreal with Pegula triumphing in the end. But this time, it was unpredictably one-way traffic. A fitting end to what had been a tumultuous week of tennis. Wait. A week? Not quite. Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), the organisation behind women’s tennis, had put the players in a challenging position in September when it announced the WTA Finals, the season-ending event, would be held in Cancun. The beach tourist spot in southeast Mexico was chosen for the 29 October to 5 November tournament. As per the schedule, announced a year in advance, Billie Jean King Cup Finals – the women’s team tennis tournament – was scheduled for 7 November in Seville. It is worth mentioning that the BJK Cup Finals are managed by the International Tennis Federation (ITF), a body independent of the WTA. So, it was a choice between WTA Finals, which pits the top eight players in the world, and BJK Cup Finals for the best professional players in the world. Only Elena Rybakina and Marketa Vondrousova have chosen to play both with Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula deciding it was not feasible. Australia’s doubles specialist Ellen Perez had just 14 hours to make it from Cancun to Seville for a 10am match on Tuesday. “Really not impressed with this scheduling disaster,” she said. For the second year running, then, WTA Finals and BJK Cup Final had clashed. Last year the WTA Finals were in Fort Worth, Texas (USA) and BJK Cup Finals in Glasgow. At the time, Swiatek had complained, “This situation is not safe for our health and could cause injury.” On to this week. With $9 million in prize money, gathering of the top-8 players in the world and World No 1 ranking on the line, there was plenty to pull the crowd. Except, WTA dropped the ball on this one too.

The decision to host the tournament in Cancun, ahead of Riyadh, Ostrava, Cluj-Napoca and Washington DC, came in September. A temporary stadium structure was constructed to seat a measly 4,300 people – lowest capacity ever for a WTA Finals. And still it remained largely unoccupied for a myriad of reasons. One, the main court was made available for practice just one day before the WTA Finals got underway. The court was built on top of a golf course which produced multiple instances of uneven bounces. Aryna Sabalenka said she, and the other top players, felt “disrespected” with the organisation of the event. [caption id=“attachment_13363752” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Aryna Sabalenka takes cover from the rain during a women’s singles match against Elena Rybakina at the WTA Finals in Cancun, Mexico. AP[/caption] “I have to say that I am very disappointed with the WTA and the experience so far at the WTA Finals. As a player, I feel really disrespected by the WTA. I think most of us do. “This is not the level of organisation we expect for the Finals. To be honest, I don’t feel safe moving on this court a lot of the time, the bounce is not consistent at all, and we weren’t able to practise on this court until yesterday for the first time. “It’s just not acceptable to me with so much on the line and so much at stake,” she had said after beating Maria Sakkari.

Vondrousova followed with the criticism. After losing to Swiatek, the Wimbledon champion posted on Instagram, “My first WTA Finals is not at all what I imagined. We work hard all year to get to the finals and in the end it’s just a disappointment. “(The) stadium is not at all ready for the matches and to me it feels like the people from WTA are absolutely not interested in how we who are supposed to play on that court feel. We do not feel that anyone listens to us and is interested in our opinions. Very sad.” Swiatek called it “not comfortable” and Rybakina acknowledged that it wasn’t easy. “I’m not really happy with the conditions and the set up of the tournament… it’s not good,” stated the 2022 Wimbledon champion Rybakina.

To add to the poor court conditions was the weather. Tropical storms lashed into the arena by the Gulf of Mexico bringing with it strong winds and extreme rain which pushed the final to Monday and the tournament slipped into complete and utter disarray. Sabalenka sat courtside with towels all around her and looked upward for some divine intervention. Then there was the sight of Gauff holding an umbrella tight before the wind blew in and the American gave in to the force of nature. The players and WTA board had already been at odds for mishaps in the last couple of months and the WTA Finals provided multiple reasons for them to be miffed. WTA CEO Steve Simon reportedly held a meeting with the players and accepted responsibility and admitted it was “not a perfect event”.

WTA had not made life easy for themselves by announcing Cancun as the host city two months before its start. After sealing a 10-year deal to host the WTA Finals in Shenzhen, China in 2019, COVID-19 hit and a ban on tournaments in China was announced later. Since then, WTA has struggled to find a stable venue. It was first hosted in Guadalajara in 2021 and Fort Worth, Texas last year followed by Cancun now. There were geopolitical reasons for the decision as well. Ostrava in the Czech Republic posed an issue that Aryna Sabalenka, of Belarus, would not be allowed in the country. Similar concerns persisted over Vera Zvonareva, of Russia, in the doubles. With Cancun bidding for just one year, it suggests that the dilemma of hosting the WTA Finals and BJK Cup Finals in Saudi Arabia might come up once again. The kingdom’s human rights record and anti-LGBTQ stance remain a hindrance for many on the women’s tour. The issues here are the tip of the iceberg. Earlier in the year, women’s tennis players have grown increasingly frustrated with how they’ve been treated.

In Madrid in May, Coco Gauff, Jessica Pegula, Victoria Azarenka and Beatriz Haddad Maia were not allowed to address the crowd during the awards ceremony after their doubles final. No such restrictions were applied to the men. Later that month, Rybakina had to wait until nearly midnight to play her Italian Open final in Rome following a rain delay. With the option to move the final to the next day, the same as the men’s, the organisers decided to remain steadfast with their scheduling. The players have sought multiple changes from the WTA such as higher pay, flexible schedule, expanded childcare and official representation on the WTA Players Council from their own, independent player organisation, the Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA), which Novak Djokovic co-founded in 2020. As Swiatek lifted the trophy on Monday, with the storm passed, Steve Simon was booed by many fans who kept their tickets for the rearranged final. “Maybe it’s time for new leadership,” former champion Martina Navratilova said. “It’s going to be hard for Steve to stay in the job somehow because everything is pointing the other way right now.”