If you are of a certain age, you may recall a recurring theme in the Peanuts cartoon strip. Charlie Brown would be preparing to kick a football, which his tormentor Lucy van Pelt was holding (as for a field goal) and as Charlie Brown approached she would snatch the ball away, much to CB’s frustration.

In this scenario, Dubai’s WTA tennis tournament is Charlie Brown and the current world No. 1 Serena Williams is Lucy van Pelt.

Five times in nine years Serena has told Dubai organizers she would play here, but three times she has withdrawn from the tournament before hitting a ball — including tonight, when her latest withdrawal (with what she said were back problems) came 20 minutes before her scheduled match on the main court. With about 3,000 people in the stands who, instead, got a doubles match involving no one ranked in the world singles top 24.

Which raises some topics, past and present.

–Why was Serena in Dubai at all? She gave a semi-interesting press conference on Tuesday, when she said she is given drug tests all the time. But when it was time to play … no go, and almost no warning. We have to assume she received some form of compensation simply for entering the UAE — or why else was she here?

–In a very similar scenario, a day before, Victoria Azarenka, the world No. 2, pulled out of Dubai with what was described as a sore something or other — OK, an injured right foot. She also was on the ground in the UAE for at least one day, and did an event at the airport with the Dubai Duty Free people … then did not play — for the second straight year after saying she would. Again, some money must be changing hands to drop by — otherwise, why not just head straight from Doha, the site of last week’s tournament, to California to get ready for Indian Wells.

–Speaking of Indian Wells, Serena won’t be playing there, but at least everyone knows that up front. She has boycotted the event since 2003, when she and her sister Venus were booed after Venus pulled out of their semifinal match only moments before it was to begin. As the years have gone by, sloppy journalists around the world have presented the story as an overt instance of racism, damaging the reputation of the tournament. When, it seems highly likely, it was almost entirely about ticket holders not believing injury claims — after spending significant amounts of money for tickets. Back then, a widely accepted notion was that the Williams sisters would go to great lengths not to play each other, and angry consumers did not appreciate being stiffed. In that case, Serena played in the final and was booed; here, she did not face ticket-buyers at all.

–When it comes to Serena next year — and Azarenka, for that matter — when Dubai organizers start telling the media months in advance that those players have “committed” to coming to the UAE, I recommend an asterisk be placed behind each of their names, with a footnote along the lines of “may turn up briefly for commercial obligations, won’t necessarily play”.)

A person would think tournaments would have some form of defense against this behavior. Pretty clearly they do not.