Kristina Mladenovic headlines a very strong field at this week’s W100+H Dubai tournament - the final big women's tournament of the 2020 season on the ITF World Tennis Tour.
The world No. 49 is one of 12 top 100 players in the main draw for the event.
Along with Mladenovic, the likes of Polona Hercog, Heather Watson, Czech pair Katerina Siniakova and Barbora Krejcikova and Arantxa Rus are all set to feature.
Dubai-resident Mladenovic began her campaign against Magdalena Frech on Tuesday, and will hope to use home advantage to put together a run of wins in the UAE.
The 27-year-old Frenchwoman hasn’t won back-to-back matches at any level since she came through qualifying to reach round two at the WTA event in Dubai in February.
World No. 59 Watson will also be hoping to secure a couple of confidence-boosting wins to end the season, having failed to win a match since she won her fourth WTA title in Acapulco in early March.
The 28-year-old Brit has a strong track record at W100 events, having won titles at W100 level in Midland and Prague in 2014, and Vancouver last year.
Second seed and world No. 52 Hercog will be looking for a rare slice of success on hard courts this week, given that all 20 of her career professional singles titles have come on clay.
The 29-year-old Slovenian last triumphed at W100 level back in 2013, while her most recent tournament triumph at any level came at the WTA event in Lugano last year.
There's an unfamiliar name on the draw sheet in the form of seventeen-year-old Israeli Mika Dagan Fruchtman.
The world No. 1363 was handed a wild card into the qualifying draw in Dubai for her first tournament appearance since June 2019 and promptly seized her chance, earning wins over Margarita Gasparyan (by retirement) and Mariam Bolkvadze to secure a main draw berth.
W100+H Dubai is one of five W100-level tournaments to take place on the ITF World Tennis Tour in 2020 from the 19 that were originally on the calendar before many were thwarted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
W100 winners in 2020 include Shelby Rogers at Midland, Olga Govortsova at Nicholasville, Irina-Camelia Begu at Cairo, and Mayar Sherif at Charleston.
Source: itftennis.com