Elena Rybakina isn’t a fan of having two-week WTA 1000 tournaments, and she spoke about it ahead of the 2024 Italian Open.
Every now and then, the ATP and the WTA decide, in agreement with tournaments, to make some changes to the calendar. Of course, those most impacted are the players, who have to adjust their schedules according to the tournament dates.
Recently, some ATP and WTA 1000 tournaments underwent a significant change, going from one-week to two-week tournaments, which makes them much longer than before.
Some of those tournaments are also the recently finished Madrid Open but also the upcoming Italian Open in Rome, where, among others, Rybakina is also set to compete, but she’s coming to the event as the defending champion.
Ahead of the tournament, the Kazakhstani player held a press conference, and she was happy to see some improvements made on-site, as players almost always come to tournaments, seeing how much they tried to improve over the past 12 months.
“Really happy to be back. It’s nice to be here. Some improvements I saw on-site. Yeah, looking forward for this event.”
However, one thing that she wasn’t happy about was the fact that the tournament would last two weeks. Only recently, Caroline Garcia criticized the new two-week format, and she’s far from being the only one.
There aren’t that many players that would be supporters of this new format, as it makes the two weeks feel like forever, as the number of matches almost didn’t change, but the period doubled.
Rybakina is also one of those players, and speaking ahead of the tournament, she shared Garcia’s opinion, saying that the new format was ‘boring’ for players.
“Yeah, I would say it’s long because it’s kind of boring to stay also, like you do your routines, then it’s becoming a bit boring to really stay too long in these tournaments. I don’t know.”
It makes it also a bit more difficult for players to properly practice in between tournaments, but still, Rybakina managed to fit in a block of preparation that should help her in her chances to defend the title in Rome.
“Well, now we did big block of the preparation before. I feel like I played so much. Madrid, of course, the courts are different and everything is different. I feel like with today’s practice, it was good feeling.”
