Any Given Match: Depth on WTA tour is at an unprecedented level

So far in 2017, one thing is certain on the WTA tour: There’s no such thing as an easy win, even if you do happen to be a member of the Top 10.

World No. 6 Agnieszka Radwanska can definitely attest to that, given her loss to 17-year-old American CiCi Bellis on Wednesday at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships. And Dominika Cibulkova, last year’s WTA Finals champion, saw her record on the season fall to 8-6 after a second-round loss to Ekaterina Makarova this week.

Even Karolina Pliskova, the early-season star of 2017 who is coming off her second tournament triumph of the year in Doha, got knocked out early by St. Petersburg champion Kristina Mladenovic.

While it may appear as if the big-name losses came in bunches this week, it actually continues a trend that’s been readily apparent so far this year. Aside from Pliskova and Australian Open champion Serena Williams, the only other members of the Top 10 to make a tournament final so far this year are Radwanska and Johanna Konta, who competed against each other for the title in Sydney, with Konta taking that match.

Konta is on the sidelines with an injury right now, and Simona Halep and Garbine Muguruza have also dealt with starts and stops due to health issues. Madison Keys, who made her Top 10 debut last year, hasn’t been able to play in tournament competition at all so far this season due to wrist surgery.

Injury has definitely played a part in how things have shaken out these first few weeks of the year. But if anything, it’s the increasing depth that’s set the course for how things have played out.

Lauren Davis has won more tournaments (one) than all but three of the sport’s 10 highest-ranked players. Only four of the 10 have made at least as many finals as Monica Niculescu, Ana Konjuh and Shuai Peng.

Currently, in Dubai, five of the eight remaining players left in the singles draw are unseeded, a rare feat at a WTA Premier event.

Angelique Kerber, one of those quarterfinalists, has been battling both the wave of unheralded challengers and heightened expectations as the 2016 year-end No. 1. She’s fallen to Daria Kasatkina twice this year, and as the defending Australian Open champion, went out to a ready-for-battle CoCo Vandeweghe in the fourth round.

If Kerber were to win the title this week, she’d return to the No. 1 spot. But as Vandeweghe and others, like Bellis, have shown so far this year, there’s no such thing as a given match.