argued that top players should receive stronger penalties<\/a> for last-minute withdrawals from events, including ranking points deductions. \u201cI think there should be a harsher punishment on the players, not just fines, they should be docked ranking points.\u201d<\/p>\nIn her press conference on Tuesday at the Miami Open, however, the women\u2019s No 1 said her decision not to compete in February was based on her determination to remain physically and mentally sound in a \u201ccrazy\u201d tennis schedule.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka opted not to compete at all in February, withdrawing from both the Dubai and Doha WTA 1000 events, both of which took place before the US-Israel war on Iran and the subsequent crisis in the region. Sabalenka\u2019s decision paid off last week as she won the Indian Wells title for the first time in her career.<\/p>\n
\u201cGoing into this season, we decided we were going to prioritise my health and make sure that we have these little gaps in the schedule where I can just reset, recharge, work and be better prepared for bigger tournaments. I feel like scheduling is going crazy and I feel like that\u2019s why you see so many players are injured, always taped and not delivering the best quality matches because it\u2019s almost impossible,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Jack Draper is one such player who has been unable to handle the rigours of the gruelling tennis calendar. He continues his comeback this week at the Miami Open after being sidelined for seven months because of bone bruising in his left arm.<\/p>\n
Draper accepts that it will take a long process to return to the top even after making significant progress at Indian Wells, where he produced one of the most memorable victories by defeating Novak Djokovic in a high-quality three-set night match en route to the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you have the injury you had, you start to look ahead, you start to think big picture. It\u2019s easy to play week after week after week, and chase the points and chase the ranking and what you need to do, but at the end of the day I want to have a long career. I want to be able to achieve all the things I want to, and I won\u2019t be able to do that if ultimately my body\u2019s not where I want it to be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it will be a process for a little while for me and I\u2019ve accepted that and that\u2019s OK. Who knows how I\u2019ll get on with my tennis, I think I\u2019m improving all the time, I\u2019m getting better. I\u2019m not putting too much pressure on myself to feel a certain way or to be getting the kind of results that maybe I wanted to early on last year when I was really climbing, but I know that will come soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite his brilliant performance at Indian Wells, Draper\u2019s failure to defend his title meant he has fallen out of the top 20. Having been ranked men\u2019s world No 4 before his injury, the 24-year-old is the 25th seed at the Miami Open this week, where he has received a first-round bye. With Cameron Norrie also performing extremely well at Indian Wells, reaching the quarter-finals after a win over the No 6 Alex de Minaur, Norrie has also leapfrogged Draper as the British No 1 this week. Their rankings battle was the source of some good-natured banter in California.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the press after I played Novak, they said: \u2018You\u2019re still going to be British No 1, and that was the first time I thought about it.\u2019 So I messaged him and said I\u2019m still holding on to it for a little bit longer,\u201d Draper said. \u201cIt\u2019s not like a competition, I\u2019m really happy to see Cam back playing good tennis and playing at a great level.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aryna Sabalenka says she may never return to compete at the Dubai Tennis Championships after she and Iga…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-543317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}