From September 17-23, the Guadalajara Open AKRON will take place in Mexico as one of the final WTA 1000 stops of the season, but many of the top players will not take part as scheduling again has been called into question.

Iga Swiatek and Jessica Pegula, with the latter being defending champion are among the leading names to formally announce their withdrawal this week, but Elena Rybakina and Coco Gauff have now added to that.

Gauff of course has just won the US Open and in many cases, the winners and runners-up tend to take time away from the sport after a gruelling two weeks like Swiatek and Muchova after Roland Garros for instance who didn't play many Wimbledon warm-ups.

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But this in many cases owes to the altitude in Mexico which has put Swiatek off playing it in the past and also in the weeks following it, the Toray Pan Pacific Open and China Open see many of the top names involved.

As a result, many will use this time as a week or so off before heading to Asia meaning that a WTA 1000 will likely have the worst line-up of the year. It also calls into question again scheduling and having a tournament with such big ranking weighting usually pencilled in towards the end of the season so close to the US Open.

San Diego Open for instance this current week usually attracts Swiatek for instance who is the defending champion, but is mainly players who failed at the US Open due to it being shifted in the schedule and the tight turnaround.

Legacy from highly criticised US Open build up and how it differs from ATP

A legacy also perhaps of Cincinnati and Montreal, which saw players such as Rybakina, Swiatek and Pegula complain about scheduling. Those players and others including Samsonova, Muchova are also missing after a tough few weeks.

This is also thrown into question with ATP playing Davis Cup which isn't a main tour and ATP 250's in the weeks following the US Open meaning the top names will have chance to recoup. Albeit it is a longer season with WTA ending earlier than ATP.

Full list of players skipping Guadalajara Open AKRON

• 🇵🇱Swiatek
• 🇧🇾Sabalenka
• 🇺🇸Gauff
• 🇰🇿Rybakina
• 🇺🇸Pegula
• 🇨🇿Vondrousova
• 🇨🇿Muchova
• 🇨🇿Kvitova
• 🇨🇿Krejcikova
• 🇺🇦Svitolina
• 🇷🇺Samsonova
• 🇭🇷Vekic
• 🇨🇳Zheng
• 🇵🇱Linette
• 🇷🇴Cirstea
• 🇭🇷Martic
• 🇨🇳Zhu
• 🇨🇳Wang
• 🇨🇿Noskova
• 🇷🇺Blinkova
• 🇫🇷Gracheva

Iga Świątek

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