TENNIS in DEPTH.

Every time a team or athlete from a neighboring Middle East state refuses to meet their Israeli counterparts on a playing field, the people who sanction the event – insert the name of just about any international sporting federation here – pretend to be shocked.Then they promise the next time it happens, they’ll bite the hand that feeds them.

Then they do what they always do: take the money and kick the Israelis down the road. The end game, apparently, turns on whether they run out of real estate or courage first.

The latest refusal came when the United Arab Emirates declined a visa request from Israeli Shahar Peer on the eve of the Dubai Tennis Championships, a tournament for which she qualified as the 48th-ranked player in the world.

The event is effectively sponsored and run by the Dubai government, and when he was there almost exactly a year ago, WTA Tour chairman Larry Scott insisted he “made it clear to the authorities, the representatives of the government” that if Shahar qualified, she must be allowed to play.

“They had a year to work on it and solve it,” he said Monday. “We’ve spent time through the year discussing it. We were given assurances that it had gone to the highest levels of government. I was optimistic they would solve it.”

They didn’t.

A brief statement from the tournament organizer, Dubai Duty Free, confirmed the visa rejection, but offered no explanation beyond a reference to “events witnessed in the region” – presumably last month’s war between Israel and Islamic militants in Gaza.

Scott said fellow players were unanimous in supporting Peer’s right to play, and that the decision to stage the event without her – as well as the Tennis Channel, which canceled plans to televise the championships in protest – was made in consultation with the 21-year-old Israeli.

He also said the WTA would consider sanctions afterward, including whether to scratch the tournament from its calendar.

“I don’t want to get ahead of our board,” Scott said, “but I’m pretty sure the conversation will start with, ‘This can’t happen again.”’

We’ll see.

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• Azarenka and Peer look to be the sharpest pair in Dubai.
• Two top seeds crash out in Dubai!

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