The Mubadala Citi DC Open, a WTA tournament with a prize pool of $780,000, has begun in Washington.

The $780,000 Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) $780,000 WTA 500 tournament has kicked off in Washington, D.C., the first of the year’s American hardcore series, which is key to the rankings at the end of the season. It will largely depend on her results whether Daria Kasatkina and Veronika Kudermetova will be able to finish in the top ten for the second year in a row, and the Pole Iga Swiatek will again finish the season on the top line of the WTA classification.

in Washington started the American WTA series on hard, which has undergone significant changes compared to the previous season. The number of tournaments leading up to the US Open has been reduced from six to four. After Mubadala Citi DC Open there will be two 1000 events in Montreal (August 7-13) and Cincinnati (August 14-20), followed by a small 250 event in Cleveland (August 20-26). But at the end of the US Open, which finishes on September 10, there will be a “500” in San Diego, and then, already in the second half of September, a “thousander” in Mexican Guadalajara, which a year ago was on the calendar a month later.

Thus, at the beginning of autumn, tennis players will have a choice. They will be able to stay on the American continent or immediately move to China, Japan and Korea, where, after a three-year coronavirus break, a full-fledged, and not truncated, as last year, Asian series will take place.

Despite significant schedule changes, the fight for tickets to the WTA Finals, which returns to Shenzhen, China, usually approaches its decisive stage in the second half of the summer.

And at the moment, the number of tennis players who retain a chance to get to Shenzhen still includes Russians Veronika Kudermetova and Daria Kasatkina, who played at the WTA Finals last time.

True, for Kudermetova over the past two months the situation has become more complicated. She lost in the first round to Roland Garros, had an overall poor grass streak and slipped from 8th to 14th place with 1858 points in this year’s rankings (see reference). But Kasatkina slightly improved her position, having risen over the same period from 20th position to 16th. 1708 points, which she now has, for the beginning of August – not a very large amount. But, given that the Czech Karolina Muchova, who closes the top eight in the WTA Race, has 2180 points, the position of both Russians does not look hopeless.

Kudermetova, however, did not come to Washington. But Kasatkina started there with a victory over the Belgian Elise Mertens. Last summer, Kasatkina won two titles on hard – in San Jose and Granby, which, despite defeats in the first rounds in Toronto, Cincinnati and the US Open, allowed her to score 760 points during the American series. Now Kasatkina faces a more serious task. Since the passing score for the final tournament for women, according to past experience, is approximately 3400 points, in order to maintain a real chance of performing in Shenzhen, she needs to add at least 1000 points to her total over the next six weeks.

In the meantime, in the 1/8 finals of the Mubadala Citi DC Open, the Russian woman will have a difficult meeting with the Ukrainian Elina Svitolina, who has recently shown excellent tennis and at the same stage Roland Garros defeated Kasatkina in two games.

Moreover, the winner of this pairing in the quarter-finals is likely to go to the top seeded Jessica Pegula. The motivation of the American woman is certainly on the level. After all, she has not yet guaranteed herself a ticket to Shenzhen, which officially succeeded the Belarusian Arina Sobolenko and the Polish Iga Shventek, and de facto also Elena Rybakina from Kazakhstan.

As for the fight for the title of the first racket of the world at the end of the year, which is just these three tennis players, it will resume next week in Montreal. Sobolenko and Rybakina did not play after Wimbledon, but Swiatek had already managed to switch to hard and confidently won the title in the 250 category tournament in Warsaw. year, ahead with a small margin is Sobolenko. All is not lost for Rybakina, who knows how to play hard very well and can also win any of the upcoming tournaments.

Evgeny Fedyakov