Agnieszka Radwanska wants the WTA Tour season shortened. Radwanska, currently ranked eighth in the world, believes that as much as a month should be chopped off the ten-month women’s tennis season, which will end of November 1st this year. The season started on January first. However, there is a level of irony to this statement, as Radwanska could potentially play in six consecutive weeks to end the season. This is probably a big reason why she wants the schedule shortened.
Radwanska currently sits in twelfth in the WTA road to Singapore and still hopes to qualify for the WTA Tour Championships. She has qualified in six of the preview seven years, including the last four in a row. The Pole has struggled this year only winning one title, two weeks ago in Tokyo, and getting past the fourth round once at a major (Wimbledon) and only reaching one quarter-final at the Premier level. Radwanska is only 79 points behind US Open champion Flavia Pennetta for the final qualification spot.
Radwanska has added events to her schedule to help her qualify for the tour championship. Were the season a month shorter, Radwanska actually would not have qualified for Singapore, as her first round defeat last week in Wuhan saw her fall out of the final qualification spot. Of course, if the season were a month shorter, last week may have been the tour championship, in which case she would have qualified having sat in ninth two weeks ago (Serena Williams qualified but has since withdrawn). Because there is still a month to go and she currently is not in a qualifying position, Radwanska feels that it’s necessary for her to play extra events if she is to qualify. She is playing this week in Beijing and is scheduled to play next week in Tianjin next week, followed by Moscow the week after. If this helps her qualify for Singapore, that will make six tournaments in six weeks. The long schedule has put Radwanska in a position where she must play more matches to qualify, even if it means exhausting herself with a demanding schedule.
When discussing the shorter schedule, the twenty-six year-old Pole has said, "I think nine months season will be good. I think a lot of people agree with me. Everybody wants that. But it's just the way it is."
Radwanska plays Angelique Kerber in the quarter-finals of Beijing next.