Not even the sandstorms that engulfed the city could take the shine off Simona Halep’s first title at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships on Saturday.
In the end, the popular top seed proved the strongest, most-durable player in a field that often resembled a doctor’s waiting room.
The timing of the event, early in the season and so soon after the slog of a several weeks in Australia, often leaves players exhausted, and this year many competitors landed in Dubai a bit worse for wear.
Serena Williams, the women’s world No 1, may have pulled out because of respiratory problems before the tournament began but others, such as Caroline Wozniacki and Agnieszka Radwanska, braved illness to be here.
“I definitely think it’s taken a toll on me and I’m still pretty pleased with my week considering everything that has been going on this week,” said Wozniacki after her semi-final loss to Halep. “It was just like the air of the balloon just kind of went off.”
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Wozniacki said she had been on “pharmacy stuff, like cough syrup, Tylenol, aspirin, Advil, lozenges”
Despite that traditional lead-up, this tournament continues to punch above its weight and players seem happy to fight through physical ailments to play.
Dubai’s location in a warm part of the world, in February, often is credited for its success, but that is simplistic and misleading.
More relevant are the number of ranking points on offer and the high prize money.
It is no surprise that many push themselves to the limit to take part, as it is a tournament that many need.
Before the late withdrawals of Williams and Eugenie Bouchard, 18 of the women’s top 20 were to compete, making it one of the strongest line-ups for a tournament that is not a major.
After the four grand slam events, Dubai is considered in the second tier of importance on the WTA Tour.
There are the big four “Premier Mandatory” events, worth a total prize money of US$4.5 million (Dh16.5m). These take place at Indian Wells and Key Biscayne in the United States, Madrid and Beijing.
Top-10 ranked players are required to take part in these tournaments.
The next category contains the “Premier 5” events, each with prize money of $2.3m.
These take place on the clay courts of Rome and the hard courts of Canada (Toronto or Montreal), Cincinnati and Wuhan in China.
The last of these Premier 5 events has been switching between Dubai and Doha for the past few years. This year it was Dubai’s turn to be one of the tour’s top 10 tournaments (which are rounded up by the end-of-season $6.5m WTA Tour Championships in Singapore).
What is more, the Dubai tournament still has the considerable prize money of $2m even when it drops back to being one of the 12 Premier events.
With such a big purse it is not surprising the players are keen to be here.
As the dust settled on the women’s event, the world’s best male tennis players – including No 1 ranked Novak Djokovic, holder Roger Federer and third-seeded Andy Murray – had descended on Dubai for the men’s event that starts today.
The more competitive (in terms of number of tournaments) men’s ATP Tour was similarly categorised to the women’s after the changes that came in 2009.
There are nine events in the Masters 1000 and 11 in the Masters 500, of which Dubai is one.
The season-ending ATP World Tour Finals takes place at London.
In its first five years, the competition was won by Karel Novacek, Magnus Gustafsson, Wayne Ferreira, Goran Ivanisevic and Thomas Muster, all excellent players in their own right but not the best of their era.
In the past 12 years the title has been shared by Federer (six), Djokovic (four), Rafael Nadal and Andy Roddick.
Its rise in significance is obvious by the quality of its winner, and more of the same can be expected this week as four of the men’s top eight lead the charge for success.
Dubai has more than established itself as a big name on the tennis circuit and there is more to come.
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