Emma Raducanu will continue to try to arrest her losing run against the best players in the world after taking another wild card into the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
The former US Open champion is enduring the worst sequence of her career having lost four successive matches.
Raducanu failed to capitalise on wild card entries into tournaments in Abu Dhabi and Doha over the last two weeks, losing in the first round both times to Marketa Vondrousova and Ekaterina Alexandrova.
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Those losses followed another first-round defeat by Cristina Bucsa in Singapore and a hammering by Iga Swiatek after she had reached the third round of the Australian Open for the first time.
Alexandrova has gone on to reach the semi-finals in Doha, and Raducanu faces the prospect of another tough draw, with the top 10 all scheduled to play in Dubai.
But the 22-year-old, who will again be supported by mentor Jane O’Donoghue and fitness trainer Yutaka Nakamura after her coach Nick Cavaday stood down for health reasons, has opted once more to capitalise on her high profile and bypass qualifying.
Qualifying for the Dubai tournament began on Friday, with the main draw under way on Sunday 16 February. Jasmin Paolini is the defending champion having kicked off a breakthrough 2024 with victory at the event last year.
