WTA releases provisional tennis schedule through end of Wimbledon in July

St. Petersburg: The WTA released a provisional 2021 women’s tennis schedule through the end of Wimbledon in July, largely sticking to a traditional calendar, including the Miami Open in March. The lineup released on Tuesday tacks on 20 weeks to the tour’s initial announcement covering the year’s first seven weeks, including the Abu Dhabi WTA Women’s Tennis Open that begins main-draw play on Wednesday. The Billie Jean King Cup finals and playoff series will start on 12 April, the French Open on 23 May, and Wimbledon — which was cancelled last year for the first time since 1945 because of the coronavirus pandemic — on June 28. After the Australian Open, which is slated for 8-21 February, there will be a WTA 500 event in Australia, followed by 500- or 1000-level events starting in Doha on 1 March; Dubai on 8 March; St. Petersburg, Russia, on 15 March; Miami on 22 March; Charleston, South Carolina, on 5 April; Stuttgart, Germany, on 19 April; Madrid on 26 April; Rome on 10 May; Berlin on 14 June; and Eastbourne, England, on 21 June. The biggest event missing from the schedule is the joint WTA-ATP hard-court tournament in Indian Wells, California, which already had said it will be relinquishing its usual March dates because of the pandemic. The COVID-19 outbreak caused that event to be cancelled in 2020.