Anett Kontaveit withdraws from Dubai tournament

Top Estonian tennis player Anett Kontaveit has had to pull out of this week's inaugural World Tennis League event in Dubai, due to illness.
Kontaveit, ranked 17th in the world, saw the latter half of her 2022 season interrupted with illness and injury, having ranked as high as second in the world, the highest placing of any Estonian in tennis history.
She would have played for the four-person "Hawks" team, facing the "Falcons", "Eagles" and "Kites" in the round robin (pun intentional) Dubai tournament, played across both singles and doubles formats and involving both women and men top players.
Kontaveit will be replaced by Sorana Cirstea (Romania, WTA 44th), who joins Elena Rybakina (Kazakhstan, WTA 22nd), Dominic Thiem (Austria, ATP 102nd) and Alexander Zverev (Germany, ATP 12th).
The 2023 season begins in Australia in the new year, with two back-to-back WTA250 tournaments in Adelaide to segue into the Australian Open in Melbourne, later in the month.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Anders Nõmm