Weirdest Tennis
Match Ever?
COLIN SIMPSON
The Day Venus Williams Played a Semi-Final on a Club-Level Outside Court
Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships
IT’S A BLAZING hot afternoon in Dubai in February 2010, and a tennis match is about to begin. On one side of the net is Venus Williams, already a seven-time Grand Slam winner and the defending champion of the Dubai tournament.
The match is a semi-final. Yet it’s not being staged on the 5,000-capacity centre court with its tented royal enclosure, but on an outside court that has only a few rows of seats along one side. The modest stand is full, and fans have also packed into the seats overlooking the courts on either side so they can crane their necks to watch the popular American.
So what’s going on? Why has a semi-final at a prestigious tournament featuring a superstar champion at the top of her game been relegated to such a humble setting? The explanation for this strange state of affairs lies in events that happened a year earlier.
Shortly before the start of the 2009 tournament the Israeli player Shahar Peer was refused entry to the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is part. She was qualified to play in the tournament because of her world ranking. The official reason given was that organisers feared for Peer’s safety because of public anger over recent Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. Peer had served as a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces.
Relations between the UAE and Israel had been strained since the creation of the Arab nation in 1971. Its first president, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, declared that Israel was the “enemy” of the Arab countries.
The refusal to grant a visa to 21-year-old Peer, who was ranked 48th in the world, broke WTA rules and sparked widespread condemnation. Defending champion Andy Roddick withdrew from the ATP men’s tournament in protest, there was talk of Dubai being dropped from the tour calendar, and the WTA slapped a record $300,000 fine on the championships.
Elegance and Power
Venus Williams went on to win the tournament, beating France’s Virginie Razzano 6-4, 6-2 in the final. Sue and I were there that night, and as always were impressed by Venus’s elegance and power. Afterwards, Williams – always a class act – did not shy away from the Peer affair. She told the crowd it was “a shame that one of our players couldn’t be here”.
Fast forward a year to February 2010, and a seemingly chastened Dubai has granted Peer a visa so she can compete. The Israeli beats three seeds as she reaches the semi-final, where she is to meet Venus. The timing is again awkward for the hosts. The previous month a leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas had been killed in a Dubai hotel less than 300 metres from the stadium. The assassins were widely assumed to be members of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, and some were caught on CCTV wearing tennis gear.
Sue and I turned up early to be sure of getting a seat for the Peer-Williams match. We were among many with centre court tickets who joined the queue for the outside court. My overwhelming memory of the day was the heat. Spectators were not allowed to take drinks to their seats, though small bottles of water and green baseball caps bearing a sponsor’s logo were handed out by stewards. There was no shade.
Peer’s previous matches had also been played on outside courts – the reason given was concern over security. This prompted one online tennis fan to remark that if Dubai could not guarantee players’ safety it should not be allowed to stage a tournament.
Security Guard
Peer’s movements had been severely limited – she spent the entire week either in her hotel or the stadium. Bizarrely, though there was a security guard on court he stood behind Venus as the players rested before changing ends, not Peer. In fact there was no hostility towards Peer during the match, with spectators applauding when she won points.
The sight of Venus Williams, already a tennis all-time great, in the small arena was surreal. For more than 10 years the likes of Centre Court at Wimbledon and New York’s Arthur Ashe Stadium had been her natural habitat. The court looked as if it belonged in a suburban tennis club, rather than at the venue of an international tournament with a star-studded line-up. Williams had probably not played in such basic surroundings since her early teens or before. In another strange touch, WTA chief executive Stacey Allaster watched the match through the side-netting from an adjoining court.
At the far end of the court the tennis writers and photographers were crammed into a tiny box next to the scoreboard, a TV camera and the coaches’ enclosure. The match was lively and entertaining. As we watched the players dart around the court we marvelled at the ability of professional tennis players to play with such energy under a burning sun.
Venus, wearing yellow, was always on top, but the outsider Peer, in pink, did not let herself down. Williams took the first set 6-1 in 23 minutes. The second set was more even as Peer got into her stride, but Venus prevailed 6-4 to bring the Israeli’s fine run in the tournament to an end. Peer summed things up by describing her week as “a different experience, but a nice one”. She added: “I’m sure I will remember this tournament for the rest of my life.”
$5m Prize Money
Venus went on to successfully defend her title, beating Victoria Azarenka 6-3, 7-5 in the final. The following year Peer reached a career-high world ranking of 11. She retired in 2017, having reached two grand slam singles quarter-finals and earned more than $5 million prize money.
Relations between the UAE and Israel are very different today, as over the past decade the states have found an increasing amount of common ground. They were drawn together by their shared opposition to Iran’s nuclear ambitions and growing influence across the region – a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.
Expanding informal ties culminated in August 2020 with an announcement that relations would be normalised under a deal brokered by the US. Phone links from the UAE to Israel were established, and by the end of the month the first direct commercial flight between the countries had landed in Abu Dhabi.
Israeli tourists began to arrive in the emirates, and in January 2021 an Israeli embassy opened in the UAE. It was all very different from the days when Sheikh Zayed made his “enemy” remark, and the time in 2009 when politics intruded into sport at a tennis tournament.
Perhaps, looking back, tennis provided a pointer to the thawing of relations between the countries. For in 2012 Peer, who had failed to qualify automatically for the Dubai tournament, was welcomed back warmly as the organisers granted her a wild-card.
NEED TO KNOW: Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships
The Tournament
A WEEK-LONG WTA women’s tournament is followed by a week-long ATP men’s competition. The 2021 championships are scheduled for March 7 to 20, slightly later than usual because of Covid. The weather at this time of year in Dubai is usually good. The men’s tournament, which is worth 500 world ranking points to the winner, is in its 29th year, while the women’s 1,000-pointer is in its 21st. Prize money for the men this year totals $1,897,805.
Dubai is a popular stop-off for the players, and some of the game’s greatest names have taken part. They include Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Andre Agassi, Boris Becker and Goran Ivanisevic. Leading women participants have included Serena Williams, Martina Hingis, Justine Henin, Lindsay Davenport and Caroline Wozniacki. Eight-time champion Federer, who has a lavish penthouse home in Dubai where he spends the winter months, is a particular crowd favourite. In 2005 he and Agassi played a match on the helicopter deck of the super-luxurious Burj Al Arab hotel as a publicity stunt for the tournament.
Venue
THE Dubai Duty Free Tennis Centre, previously known as the Aviation Club, in Al Garhoud district. The centre court holds 5,000 spectators. Dubai Duty Free is not a sponsor – it owns and runs the tournament. There are a number of dining outlets around the stadium that look pretty at night, though we’ve always felt the junk sold in the food court is inappropriate for a sporting event.
Built into the stadium is the Irish Village, a vast bar that serves decent pub food and – in non-Covid times – stages live outdoor music events featuring the likes of the Proclaimers, Boyzone and Busted. During one of Dubai’s many expansionist frenzies there was talk about building a much bigger venue for the tournament, with an even larger Irish Village. But fortunately this came to nothing, and the much-loved existing stadium survived.
Tickets
IN PAST YEARS the arrangements were chaotic, with fans forced to queue for hours in the burning sun (and occasional rain) to get hold of tickets. Meanwhile, the well-connected and those in the know were able to obtain as many as they wanted. At the time of writing no announcement has been made regarding tickets for this year’s event.
Fans' View
THIS IS one of our favourite events in Dubai, and we went every year when we lived there. The fact that it attracts so many top players means you’re pretty sure to see some great tennis. Wednesday is a good day to go, as there are still plenty of players in the draw and often you can see several top stars in a single day. Centre court is just the right size to generate a compelling atmosphere. All the talk about Dubai Duty Free at the presentation ceremonies can drag on a bit, though.
March 2021
MORE INFO
OFFICIAL website has lots of info about the tournament and its history, the players, the venue and lots more. READ MORE
THE WTA site has full details of the women’s event including scores, draws, past winners plus a selection of videos.. READ MORE
THE ATP site is a good source of information about the Dubai men’s tournament. READ MORE
RELATED
DUBAI IS A PLACE where there’s always something new to see – join us we visit 10 of them, including the QE2 Hotel, the wacky Dubai Frame, and our favourite bar in the city. READ MORE
MURRAY IN CHINA: The first men’s Shenzhen Open, held in 2014, was won by Scotland’s Andy Murray. Fast forward four years, and he was back. In the intervening years Murray had cemented his place as a tennis great by winning Wimbledon… READ MORE
FIRST ZHUHAI CHAMPIONSHIPS: Tennis great Andy Murray returned to action at the Zhuhai Championships, a new ATP tournament in China, after a year in which he feared his glittering career was over. READ MORE
DUBAI’S DAZZLING BURJ AL ARAB: We launched our hotels coverage with a look at one of the most iconic and super-luxurious properties in the world, Dubai’s Burj Al Arab… READ MORE
MORE THAN TEN YEARS HAVE PASSED since the dark clouds of the global financial meltdown started to gather above the sands and skyscrapers of Dubai… READ MORE
RECOMMENDED
WELCOME TO OUR WORLD! Afaranwide’s home page – this is where you can find out about our latest posts and other highlights. READ MORE
TOP 10 VIRTUAL ATTRACTIONS: Many of the world’s most popular tourists sites are closed because of the coronavirus crisis, but you can still visit them virtually while you’re self-isolating. READ MORE
SHIMLA, QUEEN OF THE HILLS: Government officials once retreated to Shimla in the foothills of the Himalayas to escape India’s blazing hot summers. Now tourists make the same journey. READ MORE
TEN THINGS WE LEARNED: Our up-to-the-minute guide to creating a website, one step at a time. The costs, the mistakes – it’s what we wish we’d known when we started blogging. READ MORE
TROUBLED TIMES FOR EXPATS: Moving abroad can seem an idyllic prospect, but what happens when sudden upheavals or the inescapable realities of life intrude? READ MORE
Disclosure: Afaranwide is an affiliate of leading travel operators such as Booking.com and Japan Rail Pass. If you purchase through our site we receive, at no additional cost to you, a small commission. We only work with companies we have used and recommend.
LET'S KEEP IN TOUCH!
Weirdest Tennis
Match Ever?
COLIN SIMPSON
The Day Venus Williams Played a Semi-Final on a Club-Level Outside Court
Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships
IT’S A BLAZING hot afternoon in Dubai in February 2010, and a tennis match is about to begin. On one side of the net is Venus Williams, already a seven-time Grand Slam winner and the defending champion of the Dubai tournament.
The match is a semi-final. Yet it’s not being staged on the 5,000-capacity centre court with its tented royal enclosure, but on an outside court that has only a few rows of seats along one side. The modest stand is full, and fans have also packed into the seats overlooking the courts on either side so they can crane their necks to watch the popular American.
So what’s going on? Why has a semi-final at a prestigious tournament featuring a superstar champion at the top of her game been relegated to such a humble setting? The explanation for this strange state of affairs lies in events that happened a year earlier.
Shortly before the start of the 2009 tournament the Israeli player Shahar Peer was refused entry to the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is part. She was qualified to play in the tournament because of her world ranking. The official reason given was that organisers feared for Peer’s safety because of public anger over recent Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. Peer had served as a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces.
Relations between the UAE and Israel had been strained since the creation of the Arab nation in 1971. Its first president, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, declared that Israel was the “enemy” of the Arab countries.
The refusal to grant a visa to 21-year-old Peer, who was ranked 48th in the world, broke WTA rules and sparked widespread condemnation. Defending champion Andy Roddick withdrew from the ATP men’s tournament in protest, there was talk of Dubai being dropped from the tour calendar, and the WTA slapped a record $300,000 fine on the championships.
Elegance and Power
Venus Williams went on to win the tournament, beating France’s Virginie Razzano 6-4, 6-2 in the final. Sue and I were there that night, and as always were impressed by Venus’s elegance and power. Afterwards, Williams – always a class act – did not shy away from the Peer affair. She told the crowd it was “a shame that one of our players couldn’t be here”.
Fast forward a year to February 2010, and a seemingly chastened Dubai has granted Peer a visa so she can compete. The Israeli beats three seeds as she reaches the semi-final, where she is to meet Venus. The timing is again awkward for the hosts. The previous month a leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas had been killed in a Dubai hotel less than 300 metres from the stadium. The assassins were widely assumed to be members of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, and some were caught on CCTV wearing tennis gear.
Sue and I turned up early to be sure of getting a seat for the Peer-Williams match. We were among many with centre court tickets who joined the queue for the outside court. My overwhelming memory of the day was the heat. Spectators were not allowed to take drinks to their seats, though small bottles of water and green baseball caps bearing a sponsor’s logo were handed out by stewards. There was no shade.
Peer’s previous matches had also been played on outside courts – the reason given was concern over security. This prompted one online tennis fan to remark that if Dubai could not guarantee players’ safety it should not be allowed to stage a tournament.
Security Guard
Peer’s movements had been severely limited – she spent the entire week either in her hotel or the stadium. Bizarrely, though there was a security guard on court he stood behind Venus as the players rested before changing ends, not Peer. In fact there was no hostility towards Peer during the match, with spectators applauding when she won points.
The sight of Venus Williams, already a tennis all-time great, in the small arena was surreal. For more than 10 years the likes of Centre Court at Wimbledon and New York’s Arthur Ashe Stadium had been her natural habitat. The court looked as if it belonged in a suburban tennis club, rather than at the venue of an international tournament with a star-studded line-up. Williams had probably not played in such basic surroundings since her early teens or before. In another strange touch, WTA chief executive Stacey Allaster watched the match through the side-netting from an adjoining court.
At the far end of the court the tennis writers and photographers were crammed into a tiny box next to the scoreboard, a TV camera and the coaches’ enclosure. The match was lively and entertaining. As we watched the players dart around the court we marvelled at the ability of professional tennis players to play with such energy under a burning sun.
Venus, wearing yellow, was always on top, but the outsider Peer, in pink, did not let herself down. Williams took the first set 6-1 in 23 minutes. The second set was more even as Peer got into her stride, but Venus prevailed 6-4 to bring the Israeli’s fine run in the tournament to an end. Peer summed things up by describing her week as “a different experience, but a nice one”. She added: “I’m sure I will remember this tournament for the rest of my life.”
$5m Prize Money
Venus went on to successfully defend her title, beating Victoria Azarenka 6-3, 7-5 in the final. The following year Peer reached a career-high world ranking of 11. She retired in 2017, having reached two grand slam singles quarter-finals and earned more than $5 million prize money.
Relations between the UAE and Israel are very different today, as over the past decade the states have found an increasing amount of common ground. They were drawn together by their shared opposition to Iran’s nuclear ambitions and growing influence across the region – a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.
Expanding informal ties culminated in August 2020 with an announcement that relations would be normalised under a deal brokered by the US. Phone links from the UAE to Israel were established, and by the end of the month the first direct commercial flight between the countries had landed in Abu Dhabi.
Israeli tourists began to arrive in the emirates, and in January 2021 an Israeli embassy opened in the UAE. It was all very different from the days when Sheikh Zayed made his “enemy” remark, and the time in 2009 when politics intruded into sport at a tennis tournament.
Perhaps, looking back, tennis provided a pointer to the thawing of relations between the countries. For in 2012 Peer, who had failed to qualify automatically for the Dubai tournament, was welcomed back warmly as the organisers granted her a wild-card.
NEED TO KNOW: Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships
The Tournament
A WEEK-LONG WTA women’s tournament is followed by a week-long ATP men’s competition. The 2021 championships are scheduled for March 7 to 20, slightly later than usual because of Covid. The weather at this time of year in Dubai is usually good. The men’s tournament, which is worth 500 world ranking points to the winner, is in its 29th year, while the women’s 1,000-pointer is in its 21st. Prize money for the men this year totals $1,897,805.
Dubai is a popular stop-off for the players, and some of the game’s greatest names have taken part. They include Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Andre Agassi, Boris Becker and Goran Ivanisevic. Leading women participants have included Serena Williams, Martina Hingis, Justine Henin, Lindsay Davenport and Caroline Wozniacki. Eight-time champion Federer, who has a lavish penthouse home in Dubai where he spends the winter months, is a particular crowd favourite. In 2005 he and Agassi played a match on the helicopter deck of the super-luxurious Burj Al Arab hotel as a publicity stunt for the tournament.
Venue
THE Dubai Duty Free Tennis Centre, previously known as the Aviation Club, in Al Garhoud district. The centre court holds 5,000 spectators. Dubai Duty Free is not a sponsor – it owns and runs the tournament. There are a number of dining outlets around the stadium that look pretty at night, though we’ve always felt the junk sold in the food court is inappropriate for a sporting event.
Built into the stadium is the Irish Village, a vast bar that serves decent pub food and – in non-Covid times – stages live outdoor music events featuring the likes of the Proclaimers, Boyzone and Busted. During one of Dubai’s many expansionist frenzies there was talk about building a much bigger venue for the tournament, with an even larger Irish Village. But fortunately this came to nothing, and the much-loved existing stadium survived.
Tickets
IN PAST YEARS the arrangements were chaotic, with fans forced to queue for hours in the burning sun (and occasional rain) to get hold of tickets. Meanwhile, the well-connected and those in the know were able to obtain as many as they wanted. At the time of writing no announcement has been made regarding tickets for this year’s event.
Fans' View
THIS IS one of our favourite events in Dubai, and we went every year when we lived there. The fact that it attracts so many top players means you’re pretty sure to see some great tennis. Wednesday is a good day to go, as there are still plenty of players in the draw and often you can see several top stars in a single day. Centre court is just the right size to generate a compelling atmosphere. All the talk about Dubai Duty Free at the presentation ceremonies can drag on a bit, though.
March 2021
MORE INFO
OFFICIAL website has lots of info about the tournament and its history, the players, the venue and lots more. READ MORE
THE WTA site has full details of the women’s event including scores, draws, past winners plus a selection of videos.. READ MORE
THE ATP site is a good source of information about the Dubai men’s tournament. READ MORE
RELATED
DUBAI IS A PLACE where there’s always something new to see – join us we visit 10 of them, including the QE2 Hotel, the wacky Dubai Frame, and our favourite bar in the city. READ MORE
MURRAY IN CHINA: The first men’s Shenzhen Open, held in 2014, was won by Scotland’s Andy Murray. Fast forward four years, and he was back. In the intervening years Murray had cemented his place as a tennis great by winning Wimbledon… READ MORE
FIRST ZHUHAI CHAMPIONSHIPS: Tennis great Andy Murray returned to action at the Zhuhai Championships, a new ATP tournament in China, after a year in which he feared his glittering career was over. READ MORE
DUBAI’S DAZZLING BURJ AL ARAB: We launched our hotels coverage with a look at one of the most iconic and super-luxurious properties in the world, Dubai’s Burj Al Arab… READ MORE
MORE THAN TEN YEARS HAVE PASSED since the dark clouds of the global financial meltdown started to gather above the sands and skyscrapers of Dubai… READ MORE
RECOMMENDED
WELCOME TO OUR WORLD! Afaranwide’s home page – this is where you can find out about our latest posts and other highlights. READ MORE
TOP 10 VIRTUAL ATTRACTIONS: Many of the world’s most popular tourists sites are closed because of the coronavirus crisis, but you can still visit them virtually while you’re self-isolating. READ MORE
SHIMLA, QUEEN OF THE HILLS: Government officials once retreated to Shimla in the foothills of the Himalayas to escape India’s blazing hot summers. Now tourists make the same journey. READ MORE
TEN THINGS WE LEARNED: Our up-to-the-minute guide to creating a website, one step at a time. The costs, the mistakes – it’s what we wish we’d known when we started blogging. READ MORE
TROUBLED TIMES FOR EXPATS: Moving abroad can seem an idyllic prospect, but what happens when sudden upheavals or the inescapable realities of life intrude? READ MORE
Disclosure: Afaranwide is an affiliate of leading travel operators such as Booking.com and Japan Rail Pass. If you purchase through our site we receive, at no additional cost to you, a small commission. We only work with companies we have used and recommend.
LET'S KEEP IN TOUCH!
Weirdest Tennis
Match Ever?
The Day Venus Williams Played a Semi-Final on a Club-Level Outside Court
COLIN SIMPSON
Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships
IT’S A BLAZING hot afternoon in Dubai in February 2010, and a tennis match is about to begin. On one side of the net is Venus Williams, already a seven-time Grand Slam winner and the defending champion of the Dubai tournament.
The match is a semi-final. Yet it’s not being staged on the 5,000-capacity centre court with its tented royal enclosure, but on an outside court that has only a few rows of seats along one side. The modest stand is full, and fans have also packed into the seats overlooking the courts on either side so they can crane their necks to watch the popular American.
So what’s going on? Why has a semi-final at a prestigious tournament featuring a superstar champion at the top of her game been relegated to such a humble setting? The explanation for this strange state of affairs lies in events that happened a year earlier.
Shortly before the start of the 2009 tournament the Israeli player Shahar Peer was refused entry to the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is part. She was qualified to play in the tournament because of her world ranking. The official reason given was that organisers feared for Peer’s safety because of public anger over recent Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. Peer had served as a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces.
Relations between the UAE and Israel had been strained since the creation of the Arab nation in 1971. Its first president, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, declared that Israel was the “enemy” of the Arab countries.
The refusal to grant a visa to 21-year-old Peer, who was ranked 48th in the world, broke WTA rules and sparked widespread condemnation. Defending champion Andy Roddick withdrew from the ATP men’s tournament in protest, there was talk of Dubai being dropped from the tour calendar, and the WTA slapped a record $300,000 fine on the championships.
Elegance and Power
Venus Williams went on to win the tournament, beating France’s Virginie Razzano 6-4, 6-2 in the final. Sue and I were there that night, and as always were impressed by Venus’s elegance and power. Afterwards, Williams – always a class act – did not shy away from the Peer affair. She told the crowd it was “a shame that one of our players couldn’t be here”.
Fast forward a year to February 2010, and a seemingly chastened Dubai has granted Peer a visa so she can compete. The Israeli beats three seeds as she reaches the semi-final, where she is to meet Venus. The timing is again awkward for the hosts. The previous month a leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas had been killed in a Dubai hotel less than 300 metres from the stadium. The assassins were widely assumed to be members of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, and some were caught on CCTV wearing tennis gear.
Sue and I turned up early to be sure of getting a seat for the Peer-Williams match. We were among many with centre court tickets who joined the queue for the outside court. My overwhelming memory of the day was the heat. Spectators were not allowed to take drinks to their seats, though small bottles of water and green baseball caps bearing a sponsor’s logo were handed out by stewards. There was no shade.
Peer’s previous matches had also been played on outside courts – the reason given was concern over security. This prompted one online tennis fan to remark that if Dubai could not guarantee players’ safety it should not be allowed to stage a tournament.
Security Guard
Peer’s movements had been severely limited – she spent the entire week either in her hotel or the stadium. Bizarrely, though there was a security guard on court he stood behind Venus as the players rested before changing ends, not Peer. In fact there was no hostility towards Peer during the match, with spectators applauding when she won points.
The sight of Venus Williams, already a tennis all-time great, in the small arena was surreal. For more than 10 years the likes of Centre Court at Wimbledon and New York’s Arthur Ashe Stadium had been her natural habitat. The court looked as if it belonged in a suburban tennis club, rather than at the venue of an international tournament with a star-studded line-up. Williams had probably not played in such basic surroundings since her early teens or before. In another strange touch, WTA chief executive Stacey Allaster watched the match through the side-netting from an adjoining court.
At the far end of the court the tennis writers and photographers were crammed into a tiny box next to the scoreboard, a TV camera and the coaches’ enclosure. The match was lively and entertaining. As we watched the players dart around the court we marvelled at the ability of professional tennis players to play with such energy under a burning sun.
Venus, wearing yellow, was always on top, but the outsider Peer, in pink, did not let herself down. Williams took the first set 6-1 in 23 minutes. The second set was more even as Peer got into her stride, but Venus prevailed 6-4 to bring the Israeli’s fine run in the tournament to an end. Peer summed things up by describing her week as “a different experience, but a nice one”. She added: “I’m sure I will remember this tournament for the rest of my life.”
$5m Prize Money
Venus went on to successfully defend her title, beating Victoria Azarenka 6-3, 7-5 in the final. The following year Peer reached a career-high world ranking of 11. She retired in 2017, having reached two grand slam singles quarter-finals and earned more than $5 million prize money.
Relations between the UAE and Israel are very different today, as over the past decade the states have found an increasing amount of common ground. They were drawn together by their shared opposition to Iran’s nuclear ambitions and growing influence across the region – a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.
Expanding informal ties culminated in August 2020 with an announcement that relations would be normalised under a deal brokered by the US. Phone links from the UAE to Israel were established, and by the end of the month the first direct commercial flight between the countries had landed in Abu Dhabi.
Israeli tourists began to arrive in the emirates, and in January 2021 an Israeli embassy opened in the UAE. It was all very different from the days when Sheikh Zayed made his “enemy” remark, and the time in 2009 when politics intruded into sport at a tennis tournament.
Perhaps, looking back, tennis provided a pointer to the thawing of relations between the countries. For in 2012 Peer, who had failed to qualify automatically for the Dubai tournament, was welcomed back warmly as the organisers granted her a wild-card.
NEED TO KNOW: Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships
The Tournament
A WEEK-LONG WTA women’s tournament is followed by a week-long ATP men’s competition. The 2021 championships are scheduled for March 7 to 20, slightly later than usual because of Covid. The weather at this time of year in Dubai is usually good. The men’s tournament, which is worth 500 world ranking points to the winner, is in its 29th year, while the women’s 1,000-pointer is in its 21st. Prize money for the men this year totals $1,897,805.
Dubai is a popular stop-off for the players, and some of the game’s greatest names have taken part. They include Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Andre Agassi, Boris Becker and Goran Ivanisevic. Leading women participants have included Serena Williams, Martina Hingis, Justine Henin, Lindsay Davenport and Caroline Wozniacki. Eight-time champion Federer, who has a lavish penthouse home in Dubai where he spends the winter months, is a particular crowd favourite. In 2005 he and Agassi played a match on the helicopter deck of the super-luxurious Burj Al Arab hotel as a publicity stunt for the tournament.
Venue
THE Dubai Duty Free Tennis Centre, previously known as the Aviation Club, in Al Garhoud district. The centre court holds 5,000 spectators. Dubai Duty Free is not a sponsor – it owns and runs the tournament. There are a number of dining outlets around the stadium that look pretty at night, though we’ve always felt the junk sold in the food court is inappropriate for a sporting event.
Built into the stadium is the Irish Village, a vast bar that serves decent pub food and – in non-Covid times – stages live outdoor music events featuring the likes of the Proclaimers, Boyzone and Busted. During one of Dubai’s many expansionist frenzies there was talk about building a much bigger venue for the tournament, with an even larger Irish Village. But fortunately this came to nothing, and the much-loved existing stadium survived.
Tickets
IN PAST YEARS the arrangements were chaotic, with fans forced to queue for hours in the burning sun (and occasional rain) to get hold of tickets. Meanwhile, the well-connected and those in the know were able to obtain as many as they wanted. At the time of writing no announcement has been made regarding tickets for this year’s event.
Fans' View
THIS IS one of our favourite events in Dubai, and we went every year when we lived there. The fact that it attracts so many top players means you’re pretty sure to see some great tennis. Wednesday is a good day to go, as there are still plenty of players in the draw and often you can see several top stars in a single day. Centre court is just the right size to generate a compelling atmosphere. All the talk about Dubai Duty Free at the presentation ceremonies can drag on a bit, though.
March 2021
MORE INFO
OFFICIAL website has lots of info about the tournament and its history, the players, the venue and lots more. READ MORE
THE WTA site has full details of the women’s event including scores, draws, past winners plus a selection of videos.. READ MORE
THE ATP site is a good source of information about the Dubai men’s tournament. READ MORE
RELATED
DUBAI IS A PLACE where there’s always something new to see – join us we visit 10 of them, including the QE2 Hotel, the wacky Dubai Frame, and our favourite bar in the city. READ MORE
MURRAY IN CHINA: The first men’s Shenzhen Open, held in 2014, was won by Scotland’s Andy Murray. Fast forward four years, and he was back. In the intervening years Murray had cemented his place as a tennis great by winning Wimbledon… READ MORE
FIRST ZHUHAI CHAMPIONSHIPS: Tennis great Andy Murray returned to action at the Zhuhai Championships, a new ATP tournament in China, after a year in which he feared his glittering career was over. READ MORE
DUBAI’S DAZZLING BURJ AL ARAB: We launched our hotels coverage with a look at one of the most iconic and super-luxurious properties in the world, Dubai’s Burj Al Arab… READ MORE
MORE THAN TEN YEARS HAVE PASSED since the dark clouds of the global financial meltdown started to gather above the sands and skyscrapers of Dubai… READ MORE
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