Sport
Serena Williams to play in Dubai Open
She withdrew from this week’s Qatar Open because of the bad back, declined on principle to play at Indian Wells, and was scheduled to appear next at Miami in mid-March.
All that follows two months of the off-season. Without Dubai, Williams would have played only eight matches in four and a half months. Good as she is, that would have been risky if she aims to win big titles.
The 32-year-old American has never won the title at Dubai and has not appeared there since 2009, where she lost to elder sister Venus Williams in the semi-finals. Venus has also taken a wild card into Dubai.
Serena Williams is seeded for a final with Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland which would be a repeat of the 2012 Wimbledon final.
She could start against Ekaterina Makarova, the Russian who recently won the Pattaya title, and might have a semi-final with Petra Kvitova, the former Wimbledon champion against whom she recovered from 1-4 down in the final set to regain the world number one ranking after a two-year interval this time last year.
Venus Williams, who held a match point against Kvitova this week in nearby Doha and articulated an enduring ambition to win big matches, also starts against a Russian, Elena Vesnina.
Her reward for winning would be a meeting with Angelique Kerber, the sixth seeded German, or Ana Ivanovic, the former world number one from Serbia who beat her in the Auckland final last month.
