Swiatek falls short again, Rublev rants and Murray bids farewell: Dubai Tennis takeaways

Two weeks of top-tier tennis at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships concluded on Saturday evening when Ugo Humbert lifted the famous silver dhow trophy as the men's singles champion.

It was an action-packed fortnight involving plenty of shock results, drama, a likely farewell – and some controversy. Here are the takeaways from the 2024 tournaments.

In the first year that the WTA tournament held permanent Masters 1000 status, it was no surprise that the field was its most competitive ever. All of the "Big Four" – Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff, and Elena Rybakina – played in Dubai, as well as eight of the world's top 10, which would have been nine had Ons Jabeur not withdrawn with injury.

Yet, despite the tournament's immense strength in depth, it was not one of the tour's big stars who clinched the title, nor did any of them even reach the final. That was left to be contested by Italy's Jasmine Paolini – a one-time winner on the WTA Tour – and Russia's Anna Kalinskaya, who had to come through qualifying just to reach the main draw.

Kalinskaya was responsible for eliminating half of the Big Four herself, taking out Gauff and Swiatek in the quarter-finals and semi-finals, while Paolini was due to face Rybakina in the last eight only for the Kazakh to retire from the tournament. A hectic schedule that included the title in Abu Dhabi and a final in Doha in successive weeks finally caught up with the world No 4. Sabalenka, meanwhile, suffered a shock exit in the second round.

There may have been an absence of star power in the final, but it was still a riveting match, with Paolini fighting back to seal a 4-6, 7-5, 7-5 victory.

It was a similar scenario at the ATP Tour tournament. Most would have expected a