{"id":108712,"date":"2026-07-19T12:15:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T16:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=108712"},"modified":"2026-07-19T12:15:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T16:15:48","slug":"9-players-withdraw-hamburg-prague","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2026\/07\/19\/9-players-withdraw-hamburg-prague\/","title":{"rendered":"9 Players Withdraw from WTA Hamburg and Prague"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

9 Players Withdraw from WTA Hamburg and Prague<\/h2>\n

Which Players Have Withdrawn from Hamburg?<\/h4>\n

Due to an ongoing wrist injury that has kept her out of play since the French Open, Cristina Bucsa\u2019s withdrawal from Hamburg doesn\u2019t 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\u2019t look like she\u2019ll be tournament-ready for some time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maja Chwalinska, still dealing with the injury she picked up in the first round of Wimbledon, was also forced to withdraw. Chwalinska hasn\u2019t yet been able to capitalize on her <\/span>sizable ranking boost<\/span><\/a> and could have used the smaller post-Wimbledon<\/a> tournaments to ease her into being a Tour-level mainstay. As it stands, Chwalinska doesn\u2019t have a set tournament for her return.<\/span><\/p>\n

A recent injury is also the reason for Jaqueline Cristian\u2019s withdrawal. Last week, Cristian was the top seed at her home tournament of Iasi but withdrew at the last minute and <\/span>posted<\/span><\/a> about getting knee surgery a few days later.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Viktorija Golubic, whose most recent result is a second-round loss at Wimbledon, has withdrawn along with Elena-Gabriela Ruse.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

Who Replaced Those Players in the Main Draw?<\/h4>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

Utilizing a protected ranking and gaining alternate status for the second time this season, Nadia Podoroska has benefitted from Cristian\u2019s 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

Golubic\u2019s 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\u2019s withdrawal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Which Players Have Withdrawn from Prague?<\/h4>\n

<\/p>\n

Coming off her Wimbledon quarterfinal run, Elise Mertens has withdrawn from Prague. Mertens far exceeded her seed at Wimbledon and picked up a hefty load of points, so it\u2019s no surprise that she\u2019s taking a few weeks off. Another expected withdrawal is Maria Sakkari, taking this week off after her run in Athens. Both are making smart scheduling decisions and utilizing their successful weeks to give themselves some rest afterward.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ajla Tomljanovic, who withdrew from Athens last week, isn\u2019t competing this week either. Tomljanovic has been injury-prone throughout her career and hasn\u2019t been able to put up many strong runs this season.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The last withdrawal from Prague is Magda Linette, who is currently just outside the top 50 and far from her career high of No. 19 in the world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Who Replaced Those Players in the Main Draw?<\/h4>\n

Mertens\u2019 withdrawal freed up room for Anna Blinkova, a player who isn\u2019t having the best season but is certainly capable of playing great tennis. Blinkova has a few quality wins scattered throughout her recent tournaments and always has the potential to put together a run.<\/span><\/p>\n

Polina Kudermetova lost to Sakkari in the first round of Athens but will now take her place in Prague. Kudermetova hasn\u2019t won a main-draw Tour-level match since Charleston, but has found success in qualifiers and at the lower levels.<\/span><\/p>\n

Replacing Tomljanovic is Aliaksandra Sasnovich, who was an alternate last week in Athens. Taking Linette\u2019s place is Yue Yuan, who will have the tough task of facing rising Czech player Nikola Bartunkova in the first round.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit: Susan Mullane-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5769,"featured_media":62837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9,4],"tags":[4130,888,43380,1763,15195,5227,1412,7304,43473,3541,17843,305,18161,11607,18509,10650,288,13554],"class_list":["post-108712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news","category-wta","tag-ajla-tomljanovic","tag-aliaksandra-sasnovich","tag-alina-charaeva","tag-anna-blinkova","tag-cristina-bucsa","tag-elena-gabriela-ruse","tag-elise-mertens","tag-jaqueline-cristian","tag-kaitlin-quevedo","tag-magda-linette","tag-maja-chwalinska","tag-maria-sakkari","tag-moyuka-uchijima","tag-nadia-podoroska","tag-polina-kudermetova","tag-victoria-jimenez-kasintseva","tag-viktorija-golubic","tag-yue-yuan"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5769"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108712"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108722,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108712\/revisions\/108722"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}