World No 2
Victoria Azarenka
has pulled out of the
Dubai Duty Free Tennis
due to a bone bruise to her right foot, making it the second year running that she has withdrawn from this event.
Azarenka, who triumphed at the Australian Open in Melbourne last month and in Doha last week blamed the injury on wear and tear brought about by a heavy schedule.
"Unfortunately I have to withdraw from the tournament due to the an injury which happened last week," she said. "I've been playing a lot tennis in the last five days especially, so going into a new tournament is too much to handle, it was an unfortunate decision that I had to make, and obviously I'm very disappointed with that."
Azarenka confirmed that the injury, which she first felt last Tuesday in Doha, was different to the one that forced her to pull out last year or the one that she struggled with at the Australian open.
It was suggested to the Belarusian that perhaps the women's game is suffering from too many games on hard courts in the same way that the men's is, according to
Rafael Nadal.
"I don't know if it's just the hard courts, but it is very difficult on the body, the game has become so physical and it takes so much out of you that sometimes you just need a break," she said.
"And this little thing that happened to me is your body giving you a warning that you have to take care of yourself because health is the most important thing. You have to realise that you need to listen to your body, but I do think that the physical exertion is becoming harder and harder".
Despite playing on with painkillers in Doha, Azarenka said that it is not a situation she is comfortable with.
"I tried for two days but sometimes it is better to feel the pain so I can control the situation a little bit, because when you take too many painkillers you cannot feel your foot and you may cause it to hurt more."
Having withdrawn from the Dubai tournament for a second consecutive year, Azarenka said she would have to look at her schedules more carefully in the future but maintained that how things pan out on the tour are very hard to predict.
Being selective about which tournaments to play in, as
Serena Williams
has been recently, is no easy task.
"I have to look at that, you have to plan so much in advance and you cannot know in November what will happen in February. You never know how well you're going to do or how your body will respond so you just have to move on and try to deal with the situation," she said.
"I'm very disappointed I cannot play here, I feel I am playing very good at the moment but I need to be smart, I cannot force the issue and make myself worse, it won't make any sense."
"I tried to play but my body said no, I cannot put myself in a position to hurt myself more."
Her withdrawal will leave the world No 1 Williams as a clear favourite to win the event. Azarenka said that she will now return to the US were she will attempt to recuperate from her latest injury. "I will take my time to make sure I'm 100 per cent again," she said.
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UK’s AI plan
- AI ambassadors such as MIT economist Simon Johnson, Monzo cofounder Tom Blomfield and Google DeepMind’s Raia Hadsell
- £10bn AI growth zone in South Wales to create 5,000 jobs
- £100m of government support for startups building AI hardware products
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
