Cymbiotika San Diego Open
What: WTA 500 tournament
When: Monday through Wednesday, 1 p.m.; Thursday, 11:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m.; Friday, quarterfinals, 11:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m.; Saturday, semifinals, 1 p.m.; and Sunday, singles final, 4 p.m., preceded by doubles final, 1:30 p.m.
Where: Barnes Tennis Center, with bleachers added for 2,625 center court seats and 402 on an adjacent court.
Tickets: Prices range from $50 early in the week up to $275 for VIP finals seating.
Parking: General parking at South Shores Park, near Sea World, with a free shuttle to site. VIP parking only at tourney site.
Television: Tennis Channel has live coverage slated each day of the tournament.
Purse and points: $972,573, including $142,000 for the singles champion; 500 points in WTA rankings.
Field: 32 singles players and 16 doubles teams
Background: This is the third annual version of this tournament, whose 2022 debut marked the first WTA event in the San Diego area since 2015 at La Costa Resort & Spa.
Wasn’t the previous tourney just last fall? Yes, the tourney has switched from last year’s September dates, which were in an anticlimactic position the week after the U.S. Open. Now it comes the week before the prestigious BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells. The inaugural tourney occurred in October, a month after an ATP men’s tourney then at the same site.
Road not taken: The tournament web site says “The Road to Indian Wells … Starts in San Diego.” However, that wasn’t the route for the world’s top four ranked players, who instead opted for the lucrative Dubai tourney that ended Sunday before taking a week off to reach Indian Wells. Based on the number of top 20 players, this is the weakest field in tourney history. Just two top 20 players are entered this year, compared to eight and 16 the last two years, respectively. They are: No. 5 Jessica Pugula (U.S.), No. 14 Beatriz Haddad Maia (Brazil), No. 23 Emma Navarro (U.S.), No. 24 Anastasia Pavlychenkova (Russia), No. 30 Marta Kostyuk (Ukraine), No. 31 Donna Vekic (Croatia), and No. 33 Leylan Fernandez (Canada).
No. 1 issue: The inaugural tourney field included then and current No. 1 Iga Swiatek, who won the title. This year’s event also has a top-ranked player — from 2010-11 and most recently 2018. She’s Caroline Wozniacki, 33, of Denmark, who received a wild-card entry. She retired in 2020 for what turned out to be a three-year hiatus, which included the birth of her two children. Wozniacki reached the fourth round of last year’s U.S. Open before losing to eventual champion Coco Gauff in three sets. Her current ranking is No. 206.
Pegula profile: The tourney’s top-ranked player is No. 5 Jessica Pegula, an American who returns to competition for the first time since the Australian Open in January, when she lost in the round of 64 to ’s Clara Burel. Pegula withdrew from the recent Middle East swing due to a neck injury. In this tourney two years ago, she combined with Gauff to win the doubles championship.
Unable to make it: The Czech Republic’s Karolina Muchova, last year’s French Open runner-up, withdrew to continue her recovery from wrist surgery. Also, Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya sent her regrets while on the way to reaching the Dubai finals.
Going wild: San Diego’s Katherine Hui, the reigning U.S. Open Juniors champion, has received a wild-card entry into the main draw. The Stanford freshman is ranked No. 680 in limited pro play.
Qualifying standout: In becoming one of six qualifiers to reach the main draw, Ann Li topped two former national junior champions who won their titles right at the Barnes Center. Li, from King of Prussia, Pa., first recorded a 7-5, 7-5 victory over San Diego’s Alyssa Ahn, the 2022 girls 16s champ. Then she prevailed 6-3, 6-0 over Santa Barbara’s Kayla Day, the 2016 girls 18s titlist. In her junior career, Li reached the 2017 Wimbledon girls singles final.
Vekic view: Croatia’s Donna Vekic returns to the scene of an uplifting experience two years ago, when she advanced from qualifying to the singles final. This came after she underwent undergoing right knee injury earlier that year. Ranked 77th to enter the tourney, Vekic then cracked into the top 50. Now she’s ranked 31st.
Return of the two-day closing weekend: This year’s tourney again has the traditional format of Saturday semifinals and Sunday finals, unlike a year ago. The previous event was compressed into six days, concluding on a Saturday to make way for the following Guadalajara tourney to have a Sunday start.
Online: wtasdopen.com
