Jelena Ostapenko won her second trophy of the 2024 WTA season in Linz recently, and she withdrew from the Abu Dhabi Open after that triumph.
No player impressed as much as the Latvian has this early in 2024. Aryna Sabalenka won the Australian Open in style, but Ostapenko is proving quite serious with her push to the Top 10.
She announced her seriousness early in the season by winning the Adelaide International. She put together another good run at the Austria Open Linz last week, making her way to the final and beating Ekaterina Alexandrova in the final.
With the week in Linz, Ostapenko improved to a 13-2 record in 2024, but unfortunately, fans won't get a chance to see her in Abu Dhabi.
She's already played a lot of tennis early in the season, so pushing herself to play in back-to-back weeks makes very little sense. It makes even less sense looking at the calendar and how it's been put together.
The event in Linz belongs to the 500 category, the same as Abu Dhabi. There is no need to really play that event when it comes to the points, especially after she lifted the trophy in Linz.
The back-to-back nature makes it even less appealing, but also what comes after Abu Dhabi. There are two WTA 1000 events back-to-back in Doha and Dubai. Ostapenko will take a week off to rest and properly prepare for them rather than play in Abu Dhabi on fatigued legs.
Initially, she appeared in the Abu Dhabi Open draw, but soon after that, a social media post on Instagram showed her back home in Riga with the trophy from Linz, and it became clear that she had no plans to go to the Middle East any time soon.
Following the picture, Ostapenko's withdrawal from the Abu Dhabi Open was announced, and the draw was revised, as she was one of the seeded players.
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