Karolina Muchova and Paula Badosa‘s doubles withdrawal from the 2024 China Open incited a furious rant on social media by one of the players they beat in the opening round.
Both women have enjoyed success in the singles at the China Open. Badosa, who will lead Team Spain at November’s Billie Jean King Cup Finals, beat Rebecca Sramkova to set up a round of 16 clash with Jessica Pegula.
Muchova lost to Pegula in the US Open semifinal a few weeks ago, but the Czech has responded strongly to that disappointment by also progressing to the round of 16 in the women’s singles in Beijing.
Badosa and Muchova entered the China Open doubles together. They comfortably defeated Irina Khromacheva and Anna Danilina 6-3, 6-2 to reach the second round in the Chinese capital.
The pair were due to face Veronika Kudermetova and Chan Hao-Ching, but they pulled out of the doubles draw before the match, giving Kudermetova and Hao-Ching a walkover.
Their reason for withdrawing is not complicated: Badosa and Muchova wanted to focus on their singles matches due to the more significant financial incentives and because they rarely enter doubles draws.
It is not uncommon for singles players to withdraw from doubles draws after one or two matches, but Khromacheva has had enough of that and brutally tore into Badosa and Muchova on social media.
Khromacheva, a two-time quarterfinalist in the women’s doubles at the US Open, accused the pair of not caring about doubles and said it is ‘completely crazy’ that singles players get away with deciding to withdraw after one doubles match.
“Bravo WTA. We lost to singles players in doubles in Beijing tournament, and second round they are pulling out because they don’t care about doubles. But they continue to play singles this week. Completely crazy by taking place of teams who could enter and participate fully.”
“I had this situation twice this year that when they won first round they are pulling out, without respect to doubles players.”
The doubles specialist also said Muchova and Badosa’s actions are unfair to the doubles pairs who remain on-site signing in, hoping to get another chance to play after losing in an earlier round.
“And also for people who are signing on-site trying to get in, very nice rule. Plus tournament losing one match on the schedule. Respect in WTA Tour, no didn’t hear it exists. Crazy.”
Badosa is a particularly egregious example of entering the doubles draw and then pulling out. The Spaniard has made the second round on all four occasions she has played in doubles this year but withdrew before her next match every time.
It is a challenging issue. Singles players do attract attention to doubles, helping to raise its profile. Jasmine Paolini’s partnership with Sara Errani is an excellent example of that phenomenon.
However, Khromacheva’s anger about singles players routinely pulling out in the early rounds of doubles is understandable. Whether the WTA takes any measures to prevent that situation from happening so often remains to be seen.
Leave a Reply