Aryna Sabalenka has slammed the reintroduction of performance byes after it left her without any protection at the WTA 1000 in Beijing. The world No 1 lost her protection of a pass to the second round after the WTA opted to give byes to those who had gone deep at tournaments the week before instead of the top seeds. It comes after Elena Rybakina slammed the WTA for the same rule change.
Performance byes have been causing controversy in recent weeks as the women’s tour brought them back in Tokyo to help those who had a deep run in Guadalajara the week before. Players who reached the semi-finals or better were able to have a pass into the second week of the next tournament, and the same thing has now been implemented between Tokyo and Beijing.
Jessica Pegula, Anastasia Pavlychenkova, Veronika Kudermetova and Maria Sakkari have been granted the byes for the China Open because of their performances in Tokyo. It meant that Sabalenka, Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff missed out, as they regularly would receive byes as the top three seeds along with fourth seed Pegula.
The world No 1 has now branded the move unacceptable although she conceded that players had been made well aware of the change in the rules months in advance. “I knew because they sent an email before, everyone knew about the performance bye, but I didn’t understand it,” Sabalenka said ahead of the tournament.
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“I do not understand that. Players who have byes for having played semi-finals in a lower tournament receive a bye in a 1000 tournament, I don’t understand it.” The 13-time title winner also stated that byes should be given based on ranking instead of a result the week before.
She continued: “I think you have to earn those byes. You have to do it for the consistency of your game, not just for playing well in a tournament, so you get this advantage. You have to deserve it, that’s why I don’t understand it and I don’t agree.
“I’m happy for the players who made it, but I think this is not acceptable. I hope the same thing doesn’t happen again later. It would be understandable if it went from 1000 in Guadalajara to 1000 here, but not from 500 tournaments to 1000 tournaments.”
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It comes after Rybakina let rip at the WTA after she was one of the players who missed out on a ranking bye in Tokyo because of the performances byes. “Performance bye. Thank you for changing the rules last moment. Great decisions as always @wta,” she wrote on Instagram, using clown and circus tent emojis.
The 24-year-old went on to withdraw from the tournament for unrelated health reasons. Rybakina’s coach Stefano Vukov also slammed the women’s tennis tour for multiple issues including the performance byes. “What does this mean? Do we add byes to help performing players? Or do we take away ranking earned byes? And isn’t ranking itself a sign of performance?” he wrote.
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