What exactly is going on in the women’s game right now?
Not even the players can explain it.
We saw decimation in Dubai last week, as TENNIS.com’s Steve Tignor perfectly put it. In case you missed it, all eight seeds—eight!—in the tournament lost their opening-round matches. That’s almost unfathomable.
In Doha on Tuesday, the carnage of top players continued. Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber lost to Saisai Zheng in straight sets, world No. 12 Lucie Safarova fell to Turkish wild card Cagla Buyukakcay, American CoCo Vandeweghe handled world No. 7 Belinda Bencic, and Simona Halep—who’s had a nightmarish start to the season—was upset by qualifier Elena Vesnina.