Pegula<\/a> told The National she understands why some players have opted out of playing Dubai \u2013 she herself skipped the WTA 1000 in Doha last week to rest post-Australian Open \u2013 and that \u201cthe priority is always staying healthy mentally and physically\u201d. <\/p>\n\u201cI just think the way that the calendar worked this year, we got to go to Australia [a week] later, which we were all like, great, but then it catches up at some point in the year. So I think us having a week less, it definitely makes a difference,\u201d added Pegula, referring to the fact the Middle East swing came right after the Australian Open this year instead of a week later. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t personally know how they [the players who withdrew] are feeling physically, mentally, you never really know. But I know that the schedule is very tough, and it’s not easy, and I think at some point in the year, if you do have a few good results, I think some weeks, unfortunately, do become a little bit of a sacrifice if you’re thinking long term.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can’t knock any player that wants to make that decision for themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, we play a lot, we play a full schedule, we play 10, 11 months out of the year sometimes. And I think right now we’re living in an age too where the priority is always staying healthy mentally and physically, and you never know where a player is at with that. <\/p>\n
\u201cEven if they’ve been winning matches, you don’t know if they’ve been dealing with an injury throughout that whole time or not. And that’s where you see people, I think, especially top players, maybe be a little bit more choosy with that schedule until maybe it changes in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tour Architecture Council<\/p>\n
Jessica Pegula \u2013 Chair of the Tour Architecture Council and WTA players\u2019 council member representing top 20 players; holds a career high ranking of WTA World No3.<\/p>\n
Valerie Camillo \u2013 Chair of the WTA, oversees both the WTA Tour and WTA Ventures<\/p>\n
Portia Archer \u2013 CEO of WTA Tour<\/p>\n
Player class representatives<\/p>\n
Victoria Azarenka, Maria Sakkari, Katie Volynets, Anja Vreg <\/p>\n
Tournament representatives<\/p>\n
Laura Ceccarelli \u2013 Chief operating officer and co-tournament director at APG, representing WTA 500 tournaments including the Ningbo Open and the Singapore Open, and representing the Asia-Pacific region on the WTA Tournament Council.<\/p>\n
Alastair Garland \u2013 Managing director of Octagon Tennis and tournament board representative on the WTA board of directors.<\/p>\n
Bob Moran \u2013 President of Beemok Sports & Entertainment and WTA board alternate, representing the Americas region on the WTA Tournament Council and overseeing WTA 1000 and 500 events including the Cincinnati Open and the Credit One Charleston Open.<\/p>\n
WTA Tour representatives<\/p>\n
David Highhill \u2013 Head of strategy at the WTA Tour<\/p>\n
Ashley Keber \u2013 Senior VP of member relations at the WTA Tour<\/p>\n
Joan Pennello \u2013 Senior VP of tour operations at the WTA Tour<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The WTA announced on Tuesday the establishment of a new Tour Architecture Council aimed at addressing issues with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[13362,21199,99,615,13546,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-475195","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-dubai","9":"tag-sport-team","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-standard","12":"tag-story","13":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}