Svitolina eyes winning start in Abu Dhabi

The 2021 WTA Season kicked off with the Abu Dhabi Open, a WTA 500 event, on Tuesday.

The event started with the qualifiers as main draw play to kick off the 2021 WTA season on Wednesday. Both the singles and doubles finals will be played on Jan.13.  

Second seed Elina Svitolina will be looking to begin her campaign on a winning note. She will face 2019 Citi Open champion Jessica Pegula in the first round.

The Ukrainian, who endured difficult 2020 season, has hired a mental coach. “It is important to stay strong and mentally fresh.

“At the end of the last season, I thought of hiring mental coach. There is lots of things that happening also we have Olympics this year so it’s very important to you know, to stay focused,” she added. Either rising Frenchwoman Fiona Ferro or former World No.2 Vera Zvonareva awaits the winner.

The 2020 Player of the Year Sofia Kenin, who claimed her first Grand Slam title one year ago at the Australian Open, was placed at the top of the draw as the No.1 seed. In her opening match, the 22-year-old American will meet one of the eight women who will make it through the qualifying draw over the next two days.

A rematch of the 2020 Australian Open final could be in the offing in the quarterfinals of the event, as No.5 seed Garbine Muguruza was drawn into the same quarter as Kenin.

Kenin has never defended a Grand Slam title before but the reigning Australian Open champion said on Tuesday that she will seek advice from world number one Novak Djokovic if she feels the pressure is too much to handle.

Kenin won her maiden Grand Slam in Melbourne last year which set the American on course to break into the top 10 and claim the WTA Player of the Year award.

The 22-year-old, who was also the French Open runner-up, is currently ranked fourth in the world and will be among the top seeds in Melbourne when the event gets underway on Feb. 8.

“I definitely think I can talk to Novak... I think that will be helpful since we’re both defending champions,” Kenin told reporters ahead of the Abu Dhabi Open, a warm-up tournament before the Australian Open.

“He did give me great advice ahead of the final (last year) since we were practicing next to each other.”

Civil Guard training opened my eyes to migrants’ hardships, says Muguruza; Two-time Grand Slam champion Muguruza has said training with special groups of Spain’s Civil Guard police force during her off-season opened her eyes to the hardships faced by vulnerable migrants trying to reach Europe.

Muguruza underwent military training with the Civil Guard after her French Open exit in October last year, taking part in helicopter rescue missions, cave diving and self-defence classes on the Spanish island of Mallorca.

“It was an incredible week,” Muguruza told reporters at the Abu Dhabi Open. “I’ve always wanted to do military training, ever since I was a kid, but the timing was never right with playing tennis.

“Just sharing with them the kind of job that they do – they don’t get any awards or trophies – it was such an experience.”

The 27-year-old said that seeing migrants make sea crossings from Africa was the toughest challenge when she worked with the coast guard.

“It was quite hard because you see many people in need,” she added. “I experienced many aspects of the job and I found this one pretty tough. I love all the adventure stuff, but there is an ugly truth that they have to face and it really opened my eyes.”

Muguruza, a runner-up at the Australian Open last year, also said she had no concerns about this year’s event from Feb. 8-21 despite the strict COVID-19 protocols in place, which include a 14-day mandatory quarantine for players.

“I’m not really concerned, I think they’re doing an incredible job in putting all this together and making a whole swing in Melbourne,” she said.

“I think it’s going to be mentally tough to go through the protocols because nothing comes easy now. I have to prepare for that.”