Luisa Stefani from São Paulo returns to play in the WTA 1000 women’s doubles tournament in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, this Tuesday morning (17). The partnership between the Brazilian, 14th in the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) ranking, and Canadian Gabriela Dabrowski (10th) will face Czech Marie Bouzkova (89th) and Indonesian Janice Tjen (57th).
The match will be the third on Court 4 of the tennis complex that hosts the tournament. The first appointment of the day is scheduled for 4am (Brasília time). In other words: Luisa’s pair – who were Olympic bronze medalists at the Tokyo Games in Japan – should not play before 7am.
This Monday (16), the partnership between the best placed Brazilian in the world rankings and the Canadian debuted with a 2 sets to 0 victory over Australians Maya Joint (37th) and Kimberly Birrell (111th), 6/3 and 6/4. It was their eighth victory of the season.
The pair are coming off two consecutive semi-final defeats: at the WTA 1000 in Doha, Qatar, and at the Australian Open. Both for the same partnership: Kazakh Anna Danilina (7th) and Serbian Aleksandra Krunic (11th). A new meeting between them could take place in Dubai – interestingly, at the same stage of the championship.
The WTA 1000 level tournaments are the main ones on the sport’s circuit. In importance and scoring, they are only behind the four biggest tennis competitions, the Grand Slams: Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and US Open.
