Halep dumps this stupid tournament again. Belinda will need WC regardless of her result in Linz because Kiki will be in Moscow unless Belinda doesn't win Linz and gets snubbed with Moscow WC or doesn't want one. Sounds complicated but it really isn't.
Alison is now #20, this gives her the right to request the Top 20 WC, correct? She is very close to qualifying for Zhuhai and i would imagine she wants to play.
That's useful for the breakdown of points. They acknowledge Marketa is out, but still have Serena as active, and thus currently have Bertens as the #1 player, but in all likelihood, everyone will move up one spot, and Anisimova would be the final direct acceptance, but would be passed if either Qiang wins Tianjin, or Dayana makes the final.
^^ yes , for now Riske is still ahead of Vekic because the tie breaker is greatest number of points in grand slam, premier mandatory and premier 5 , wta finals .
Ah right, makes sense, I did notice Coolfish had Riske above Donna for now, but wasn't sure what the criteria was - someone should edit wiki
It's kind of splitting hairs as both Riske and Vekic are surely around 99% likely to qualifiy anyway, but out of curiosity, does Vekic have to post her 60 points for the Rogers Cup as part of the 2 P5's, or does she have more leeway? It doesn't matter this week because if she loses to either Kiki M or Alendandrova she won't get more than 60 points, whereas a SF 110 points would replace her Stuttgart QF 100 points, but if she lost to Kiki M, and then made the Moscow QF next week, and another 100 points, could she post that instead of the Toronto 60, or would she still have to post Toronto?
This is funny on many levels including the fact that she would have a R1 bye if she signed up for the tournament or got MD WC. Will need to win tons of matches now and, based on how dead she looked in Linz, that looks unlikely. At least Belinda being involved in Moscow means Bertens and Svitolina too still can't relax.
Belinda has been very kind to the Russians over the years. She chose to make her comeback from the wrist injury in an ITF in St Petersburg saying she chose this as they had treated her so well there when she was the No 1 seed and lost the final in 2016 to Vinci.
Despite this in February this year she wasn't given a WC which I thought was disappointing.
My memory was that she helped with the draw ceremony in 2016 in Moscow.
WC should be issued to players who need some help launching their careers or have had some bad luck eg injury etc and players who have treated tournaments well in the past.
The ridiculous number of WC given to players like Bouchard who has only had the odd minor injury I find brings the sport into disrepute.
I live in UK and cringe every year when the announcements for the Wimbledon WC are made each year.
All sport should be a meritocracy.
It is blatantly unfair that because of your nationality and you are lucky enough that your country hosts a GS that you can get a WC for several years and get gifted the money that goes with it despite the fact that you have either little ability or are not prepared to put the work in. The agreement between RG, USO and AO for reciprocal arrangements is the worst of all.
The best thing Wimbledon ever did was to give a WC to Ivanisevic when he won.
Back to BB - there is obviously no rule against this so presumably no one would have any problem if the circumstances were that Belinda needed the extra few points she could gain by winning as a qualifier to qualify.
In other words going into the final tournament of the year let's say she trailed Kiki by 471 points and specifically requested a Qualifying WC so that she could overtake her.
That is another problem I am all for qualifiers earning points but if you win a 1st round MD match those points should disappear in favour of the points you earn for reaching the 2nd round.
Shame on the Russians for doing this. It would be good for all the players to speak out over this.