Daria Kasatkina has now reached multiple finals in the same season in 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.
WTA scheduling woes returned to the forefront with Daria Kasatkina the latest to feel the brunt and also criticism as she will bizarrely play on Monday at the Qatar Open just under a day after playing the Abu Dhabi Open final against Elena Rybakina.
Kasatkina is due to kick off her Qatar Open campaign on Monday giving her little time to actually recuperate and go again. It is an issue that her final opponent Elena Rybakina knows very well and has been very vocal in the past about. But of course in the case of the Kazakh, she is saved by the fact she is a top seed.
Kasatkina is just above the top 10 so starts her tournament in the first round with no performance bye either in sight and in a damning statement, she asked the WTA if they wanted her to die or get injured by having back-to-back matches after also playing on the Saturday too against Beatriz Haddad Maia so the Russian will play three in a row. A second final of the year awaits, but Kasatkina will also have one eye on a swift getaway.
"It's terrible scheduling, honestly," Kasatkina said, via France24. "I don't know how you can schedule the finals of the tournament on Sunday, wanting to finish the next tournament on Saturday, so you start it on Sunday, and like this, the player, if like me, you don't have a bye in Doha, I have to play on Monday. And I play finals tomorrow at 5pm."
"We don't have yet this technology that I can just do like this (snaps her fingers) and be in Doha in five seconds."
"I have a question, I don't know to who, to WTA or the tournaments, like, are you guys trying to make players die, or to get injured often?" she added.
Daria Kasatkina has now reached multiple finals in the same season in 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.