Tennis is finally a breather. After four Grand Slams, 56 more WTA Tour tournaments and the small matter of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, the tennis calendar enters the off-season – with players usually found first in the Maldives and then on the practice courts before the new campaign starts. in Australia and New Zealand in late December.
In a look back at the 2024 WTA season, the ‘s tennis team looks back on Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek’s battle for world number 1; Zheng Qinwen’s breakthrough; The Evolution of Coco Gauff; The rise of Jasmijn Paolini and much more.
They also pick their best and favorite matches, surprises and moments from another remarkable year of tennis.
Don’t forget to sound off in the comments with your picks: there’s plenty of tennis to review.
How Sabalenka rose to number 1 in the world – and how Swiatek might return there again
James Hansen: Sabalenka’s official ascent to world No. 1 was deeply unsatisfactory: an unannounced reduction of ranking points for non-participation in mandatory tournaments put Sabalenka above Swiatek on a Monday morning in October. Still, it has been coming for a while, especially for Swiatek, who said she thought she was “going to lose it two weeks ago” during a press conference at the WTA Tour Finals.
Matthew Futterman: Evolution and tranquility. She expanded on the biomechanical improvements to her serve by adding more variety to her game. She won the biggest points of the US Open semi-final and final against Emma Navarro and Jessica Pegula with short angles, drop shots and volleys, not the frozen rope winners with which she shot Zheng Qinwen off the court in Melbourne. She also missed Wimbledon, the Olympics and other weeks, the latter due to Belarus’ exclusion from the Billie Jean King Cup, which meant she got time to rest while everyone else flew around and played.
Charlie Eccleshare: Not playing the Olympics and Wimbledon was a big thing, even if missing Wimbledon felt like a huge deal at the time. She talked about how she had to take a break in March (after the death of hockey player Konstantin Koltsov, her former boyfriend), but that it was a huge advantage to come fresh to the hard-court swing in the US, while Swiatek seemed to have no more strength. around the US Open.
Hansen: The Olympics didn’t define the season, but probably had a bigger impact than expected earlier this year. Swiatek, who unexpectedly joined Zheng there, still ended the year with the most WTA titles in the top 10 and the highest winning percentage; she was number 1 in the world from the beginning of this year until the end of October. She has appointed Wim Fissette as her new coach and they have both talked about adjusting her game in the off-season to avoid her defeats becoming similar and impossible to stop, as started to happen around Wimbledon. She seems ready to press charges.
Eccleshare: When we spoke in Riyadh during the WTA Tour Finals, Sabalenka said that when she became the first world No. 1 (just before the end of the 2023 season), it felt like “five minutes”, she felt like a pretender. Now she sees herself as someone who should dominate, and she showed that in Melbourne and especially on the hard court towards the end of the year. Swiatek wasn’t where she should be in the second half of the year and will likely bounce back.
Matt Futterman: I don’t know if at this point I see anyone else coming to challenge Swiatek and Sabalenka and pass the world number 1 back and forth in the coming years. The X factor is Coco Gauff.
A season with two coaches for Gauff and reflections on the WTA top 10
Hansen: If you were to analyze Gauff’s season – the WTA Tour Finals title, a WTA 1000 title in Beijing, a 250 in Auckland and the women’s doubles title at the French Open – as Gauff, what would you say?
Futterman: She would not have signed up for these results and by that measure she will be disappointed. I think she expected to keep collecting Slams, or at least win one more – and she didn’t make a Slam final, which she wants.
Eccleshare: I think you’d have to split it into the pre- and post-Brad Gilbert era, given the nature of her losses at Wimbledon and the US Open and the improvements she’s already made to her serve and forehand since then, even though the service can still leave her at seemingly unexpected moments. Gauff beat Navarro in the semi-finals when she won Auckland, so Navarro subsequently knocking her out of two Grand Slams in a row was an important measure of where she was before parting ways with Gilbert.
Hansen: Staying with the theme: Who in the WTA top 10 would have signed up for their season and who wouldn’t?
(Records prior to the Billie Jean King Cup)
Eccleshare: Zheng and Paolini are the ones who stand out. I think anyone outside the top three would have signed up for Paolini’s extraordinary year, with two Grand Slam finals, Olympic doubles gold alongside Sara Errani and then also winning the Billie Jean King Cup with Italy. Dan Zheng, Olympic singles gold medalist, Australian Open final, those are the two who really started. Navarro too, because she’s making very steady progress and is easily overlooked because she hasn’t had as many headlines.
Futterman: Well, Barbora Krejcikova would certainly have signed for a Wimbledon title. The person I would nominate for this would be Danielle Collins, considering where she was in January and not even seeded for the Grand Slams. For a month and a half in March and April, she was probably the best player in the world. She would certainly accept that.
Eccleshare: Elena Rybakina is the one – not just with results, but in her time with and then the relationship with long-term coach Stefano Vukov, the illnesses and injuries – who will look back and wonder what could have happened. Even just after Stuttgart and then Madrid it looked like she was about to have a four-way battle with Swiatek, Sabalenka and Gauff as by far the best players in the world and it just didn’t work out that way, especially at Wimbledon when she was 1- 0 ahead of Krejcikova with three break points in the second set of their semi-final.
Hansen: The fact that Rybakina’s early-season form kept her in the WTA Tour Finals – and that she defeated Sabalenka there – perhaps suggests that she could be on the way back with Goran Ivanisevic in her box. Who made the biggest statement for you on the 2024 tour with the progress they made this time last year?
Eccleshare: Zheng. ‘Statement’ is a good word for her because I feel like she’s unsettling players at the top of the tour with the way she doesn’t take a step back. Players sometimes have breakout seasons but still seem underwhelmed; she doesn’t feel that way at all and I think she has gotten things off track in a very positive way.
Futterman: Navarro. It was almost all in one match – which she lost – the match against Maria Sakkari in Indian Wells. She went toe to toe with Sakkari and really hit the ball hard, and then played with so much confidence in her tournaments. Even when she won the Hobart International, she didn’t play with that kind of confidence. Even though Gauff knew more about her than most from their younger days, she didn’t see her coming, not like this.
Hansen: The two players at the center of the strangest beef of the year.
A season full of remarkable comebacks and exciting breakthroughs
Hansen: This was a season of significant returns to the court, for the likes of Naomi Osaka, Paula Badosa and Karolina Muchova. Which of the three, all of whom have made progress in different ways, will look back with the most satisfaction?
Eccleshare: Badosa. She has improved both her fitness and her level the most. Muchova has achieved more in one event and has shown that her level is still in the conversation for potentially winning a Grand Slam, but Badosa seems more ready to play a full season and stay fit than the Czech currently , considering Muchova’s end. injury of the season. Osaka had the same problem and I don’t think she has fully answered the level question yet. Badosa has stitched those two things together the best.
Futterman: I think the strange thing about Osaka – without knowing how serious her back injury is – I think she’s physically there. The mystery with her is that she has lost her superpower, namely: the tighter the moment, the better she played. The serves she hit on crunch points in the Grand Slam final were outrageous. The Osaka of 2021 was not bothered at all by losing games, sets, or her serve. It didn’t matter, she would win. That’s what she couldn’t do at times this year, whether it was against Swiatek at the French Open or Muchova in New York. That’s when she put the hammer down. I don’t know if coach Patrick Mouratoglou can get her there, but we’ll find out.
Hansen: Among the younger players on tour, who has made the biggest progress this year?
Eccleshare: Diana Shnaider stands out. She hasn’t come through and has only one or two impressive results at a Slam: she’s won a title on every surface, including a WTA 500; she reached a semi-final of the WTA 1000 in Canada. For someone who hasn’t had much hype yet and still has a lot of room to improve in terms of her Grand Slam results, she’s the one who stands out for me.
Futterman: I was hugely impressed by Iva Jovic, the 16-year-old American who defeated Magda Linette at the US Open and came within a few points of beating No. 29 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova in the second round. I think she has the strength to move forward and that was a good start.
WTA Tour Speed Run 2024
Best agreement:
Iga Swiatek vs. Aryna SabalenkaMadrid Open final (MF, CE, JH)
Favorite agreement:
Aryna Sabalenka vs. Jessica PegulaUS Open final (CE)
Donna Vekic vs. Jasmijn PaoliniWimbledon semi-final (MF)
Karolina Muchova vs. Jessica PegulaUS Open semi-final (JH)
Most memorable (not necessarily best!) recording:
Karolina Muchova‘s behind-the-back lob at the US Open (CE)
Aryna Sabalenka‘s cross-court drop shot on set point of the US Open final (MF)
Donna Vekic‘s inside-out forehand return winner down match point against Marta Kostyuk at the Olympic Games (5-6 in video below) (JH)
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Tennis, Women’s tennis
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