The mystery of Anna Kalinskaya: From Dubai final to another withdrawal due to illness at Merida Open Akron

Anna Kalinskaya withdrew yesterday from Merida Open Akron where she was a late entrant anyway taking a wildcard after her defense of final points at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships faltered early. But it continues a theme of problems for the Russian.

Kalinskaya has long suffered with injury and illness but in reaching the Quarter-Finals of the Australian Open and multiple finals in 2024, she heralded herself towards the top 15 and became a focal point mainly due also to her relationship with men's World No.1 Jannik Sinner.

But Sinner who is currently not on tour serving a ban for the use of Clostebol so he won't be back until Rome likely will be joined by his girlfriend on the sidelines in her case until Indian Wells and Miami, two tournaments that Sinner cannot compete at.

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Her season as a whole has not been great and started with a first round loss albeit to one of the stars thus far of 2025 in Ashlyn Krueger. The 20-year-old made it to the final of Abu Dhabi and the American eventually lost in the last eight.

But it was illness that was the issue from there and continues to be so in an Elena Rybakina type mystery in regards to suddenly being ill instead of injured all the time. She retired at the Adelaide International to Belinda Bencic, didn't play the Australian Open at all due to illness.

Again she retired in the semi-finals in her best run of the season thus far at the Singapore Tennis Open in a tournament which given the field will have been seen as a missed opportunity. She lost to Cristina Bucsa and Elina Svitolina in Doha and Dubai and now is out of Merida Open Akron too.

A Dubai final last year helped to propel Anna Kalinskaya but she is staring down at a predicament of illness and injury again.

From being at best 11th in her career last year, she continues to slide down the rankings into 33rd spot and after spending most of her career not living up to her potential due to injury, it seems to be illness that is her current issue and seemingly not being able to recover sufficiently in order to play week after week.

She sits around a pack of players who continue to slide including Maria Sakkari, Jelena Ostapenko, Ons Jabeur Anastasia Potapova and Victoria Azarenka all of whom are top 15 players in the last few years. But all seem to be struggling to find it again while a chasing pack including Krueger and also Rebecca Sramkova for instance continue to reach new career highs and take their spots.

Ahead of Indian Wells and Miami, Kalinskaya will need to find answers and another withdrawal doesn't help find them.

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