Shahar Peer Vs. Na Li in front of a not-so packed house.
The ironies keep growing at the WTA Dubai Tennis Championships as Shahar Peer continued her impressive run with a win over Na Li 7-5, 3-0 (ret) when the Chinese player retired with a right back injury. The match was again played on a small outside court for security reasons. Peer will now finally get a chance (one hopes) to play on the main court when she faces Venus Williams in the semifinals. Williams won today over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-3, 6-4.
This match is its own irony as it was Williams, the defending champion, who came to Peer’s defense after the Israeli player was denied a visa to play the event last year. Williams during her trophy ceremony said “it was a shame one of our players couldn’t be here.” For her support of Peer, Williams later received an award from the Anti-Defamation League.
Security measures have been tight all week for Peer’s matches with fans going through metal detectors according to the BBC. Tournament director Alan Mills has said he takes each Peer match “day by day” and didn’t sound entirely certain where the final would be played if Peer makes it to the final.
Last month’s recent assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai that Dubai officials believe for certain was the work of Israel was bad timing for the event and reason for the extra security. However one feels about the situation, one has to give credit to the event’s organization for all the measures they’ve taken for Peer and major credit goes to Peer and her team for being able to deal with it all in stride. As Peer said herself, “But whatever will be, will be. I’m not controlling it. I’m doing what I’ve been told and wherever I need to play, I’ll play on.”
The other semifinal features Victoria Azarenka against Agnieska Radwanska.
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