With the WTA Tour still in limbo in between grass season and the North American hardcourt swing, the strange mix of tournaments continues. This upcoming week will feature two 250s: Hamburg on outdoor clay and Prague on outdoor hard courts. There have been five withdrawals in Hamburg and four in Prague shaking up the draws.
9 Players Withdraw from WTA Hamburg and Prague
Which Players Have Withdrawn from Hamburg?
Due to an ongoing wrist injury that has kept her out of play since the French Open, Cristina Bucsa’s withdrawal from Hamburg doesn’t come as a surprise. Bucsa is still borderline Top 40 in the WTA rankings and has time to get things back on track, but it doesn’t look like she’ll be tournament-ready for some time.
Maja Chwalinska, still dealing with the injury she picked up in the first round of Wimbledon, was also forced to withdraw. Chwalinska hasn’t yet been able to capitalize on her sizable ranking boost and could have used the smaller post-Wimbledon tournaments to ease her into being a Tour-level mainstay. As it stands, Chwalinska doesn’t have a set tournament for her return.
A recent injury is also the reason for Jaqueline Cristian’s withdrawal. Last week, Cristian was the top seed at her home tournament of Iasi but withdrew at the last minute and posted about getting knee surgery a few days later.
Viktorija Golubic, whose most recent result is a second-round loss at Wimbledon, has withdrawn along with Elena-Gabriela Ruse.
Who Replaced Those Players in the Main Draw?
Kaitlin Quevedo, who recently made her Top 100 debut, took the place of Bucsa in the main draw. Quevedo has slowly been working her way up the rankings and into Tour-level events, and she tends to pick up one or two wins week in and week out.
Replacing Chwalinska is Moyuka Uchijima, who reached a WTA 125 final on clay earlier this season. Uchijima has struggled since then, though, and is far from her Top 50 career high. A lucky break here to skip qualifying may be just what she needed.
Utilizing a protected ranking and gaining alternate status for the second time this season, Nadia Podoroska has benefitted from Cristian’s withdrawal. Podoroska is currently ranked No. 537 in the world but is far more skilled than that, especially on clay, and she has to make her use of the protected ranking worth it by picking up some points, of which she only has 11 on the season.
Golubic’s withdrawal made way for Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva, who is coming off a 6-0 6-1 first-round loss that she suffered last week in Iasi. And for the second week in a row, Alina Charaeva enters the main draw as an alternate due to Ruse’s withdrawal.
