Love is in the air at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships

This Valentine's Day, love is not only in the air but on the tennis court as well.

As players prepare to do battle at this month’s Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, other exciting games are being played — games of the heart. In the world of tennis, love isn’t just a score of zero; it’s a complex dance in which a doubles pairing can extend beyond the baseline.

As the world’s best male and female tennis players descend on Dubai for the annual WTA 1000 and ATP 500 tournaments respectively, we look at some of the most eye-catching relationships that have blossomed amid the aces and cross-court backhands and highlight some of the sport’s most enduring relationships when it comes to Cupid’s arrow.

Last year was a milestone year in the lives of Alexander Shevchenko and Anastasia Potapova, as the latter reached a career-high ranking of No. 21 in June while Kazakh Shevchenko broke into the Top 100 and made his Grand Slam main-draw debut at Roland Garros. Yet off-court proved even more momentous as the two young players got married in December after a whirlwind two-month engagement.

Both are r Anastasia and Kazakh are returning to the Emirate this month, as man and wife.

Dubai-based Paula Badosa reached as high as World No2 in 2022, won three WTA Tour singles titles, and contested a quarterfinal at the 2021 French Open. Struggling with injuries of late, the Spaniard has been training in the Emirate and is on the entry list for next week’s WTA 1000 event. Last week, she was visited by her long-term boyfriend Stefanos Tsitsipas, the two-time Grand Slam finalist.

Veronika Kudermetova, the World No.16, reached the final in Dubai in 2022 before falling to Jelena Ostapenko. She will return this year looking to go one step further and will, as she has throughout her career, lean on the coach, husband, and former ATP player Sergie Demekhine for advice.

Demekhine helped steer Vera Zvonareva to two Grand Slam finals and a World No. 2 ranking and started dating Kudermetova when she was 18. Two years later they were married.

Denis Shapovalov has only appeared in Dubai twice – reaching the semi-finals on both occasions in 2021 and 2022. Suffering an injury-ridden season last year, he returns to the Emirate this month keen to get his career back on track. Off-court, things are going smoothly as Denis proposed to his girlfriend of four years Mirjam Bjorklund in June. Bjorklund, a 25-year-old Swede, has a career-high of No123 and qualified for her third Grand Slam at the 2023 US Open.

Elina Svitolina is a two-time Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships winner and became one of only three women to successfully defend her title in the Emirate when she won in 2017 and 2018. Since 2021, she has been married to Frenchman Gael Monfils, the former World No6 who reached the semi-finals of his native French Open in 2008, as well as the final four in Dubai in 2019 and 2020.

Other curiosities

Of course, when it comes to tennis power couples, nobody comes close to Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf. The pair, who will celebrate their 23rd wedding anniversary this October, share 30 Grand Slam titles between them, with Graf winning 22 during her career and Agassi adding eight more between 1992 and 2003. While neither won in Dubai, Agassi will forever be associated with the city after playing a historic match with Federer atop the Burj Al Arab in 2005.