As the round-robin stages of the WTA Tour Finals progress, Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff have qualified for the semi-finals, where they will be joined by Zheng Qinwen.
Sabalenka was drawn with Jasmine Paolini, Elena Rybakina and Zheng Qinwen in the group stage, which started on November 2 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
World number 2 Iga Swiatek, who wants to replace Sabalenka as world number 1, was drawn by Coco Gauff, against whom she has an 11-1 record, Jessica Pegula, who defeated her in the quarterfinals of the US Open, and Wimbledon champion Barbora. Krejcikova:
Sabalenka took the lead 3-2 in the head-to-head confrontation with Paolini by winning 6-3 and 7-5 on Monday. After powering through the first set and leading 4-2 in the second, the result seemed like a formality, but Paolini fought back to 5-5 before Sabalenka’s pressure became apparent. When Gauff powered past an error-plagued Swiatek 6-3, 6-4 on Thursday, the American qualified for the semi-finals and confirmed Sabalenka’s position as world No. 1 at year’s end.
Sabalenka will face Rybakina on Wednesday, she has a 6-3 lead.
Rybakina defeated the Belarusian in their most recent hard-court meeting in the 2024 Brisbane final, but she had not played a competitive match since the first round of the US Open before arriving in Saudi Arabia and withdrawing from numerous tournaments with injuries and illness. the year. Her early results, including three titles and two finals, kept her in contention for the year-end event.
Although Rybakina lost her first two matches in Riyadh, Paolini triumphed 7-6(5), 6-4 before Zheng kept her qualification hopes alive with a 7-6(4), 3-6, 6-1 win. she sees the tournament as an exercise in assessing her level and building her competitive strength.
These results put Zheng and Paolini in a direct shootout to qualify for the semi-finals, which Zheng won at a canter 6–1, 6–1.
In Swiatek’s first competitive match with new coach Wim Fissette, she came back from a slow start to beat Krejcikova 4–6, 7–5, 6–2 and gradually took control of the match. Gauff, who has shown renewed confidence on her forehand since the split with coach Brad Gilbert – despite some shaky serving performances – was always in control of her opening match against compatriot Pegula, winning 6-3, 6-2.
Pegula, who looked out of form throughout, then succumbed 3-6, 3-6 to Krejcikova, eliminating the American from the tournament. Swiatek now needs to beat Pegula to reach the semi-finals, but also needs the already qualified Gauff to beat Krejcikova. A Krejcikova win will eliminate Swiatek regardless of her result against Pegula.
The eight players who qualified were divided into four pots for the draw. Pot 1 is No. 1 and No. 2, Pot 2 is No. 3 and No. 4, and so on.
These placements follow the rankings of the players in the ‘WTA Race’, the table that only counts ranking points earned in 2024.
Each player then plays three round-robin matches. The top two players from each group compete in the semi-finals, with the winners meeting in the final.
This year, Barbora Krejcikova qualified eighth despite being number 12 in the race. Krejcikova won Wimbledon, beating Jasmine Paolini in the final and a Grand Slam champion who finishes between No. 8 and N0. 20 in the race in the year they won their title automatically qualify for the event.
Iga Swiatek won the 2023 WTA Tour Finals in Cancun, Mexico, beating Pegula 6-1, 6-0 in the final. The current world number 2 won all five of her matches last year, beating Aryna Sabalenka to end the year as world number 1.
The total prize money is $15.25 million (£11.76 million), which is a record for the event. The prize money is allocated per match won and is structured so that the champion will take home $5.15 million (£3.96 million) if he goes through the event undefeated with five wins (three round-robin wins, a win in the semi-final and then the victory in the match). the final).
The winner of the final will receive $2.5 million (£1.9 million), while the winner of each semi-final will receive $1.27 million (£978,000); the prize for a round-robin match win is $350,000 (£269,500) and each player will receive $335,000 (£257,900) just for participating in the event.
The prize pool is more than $6 million richer than that of the 2023 event in Cancun, and the winner’s prize is bigger than that of the four Grand Slams, with the US Open being the largest at $3.6 million (£2.77 million).
The Saudi Ministry of Sports and the Saudi Tennis Federation (STF) signed a three-year contract for the WTA Tour Finals in April this year. The Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) already sponsors the ATP and WTA world rankings, and this deal is currently the biggest part of the kingdom’s move into tennis. Saudi Arabia has plans for a coveted 1,000-level tour event, but plans for that tournament are currently stalled on the most fundamental principles, including when it would be played and whether or not it would be a combined event, involving both ATP and WTA players play at the same location in the same fortnight. This is not expected to lead to any kind of success until 2027, if not 2028.
A deal was completed in the summer of 2023, but the WTA withdrew after prominent criticism of the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia and the treatment of women by prominent former players, including Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova. That sent the WTA looking for a host city and ended up in Cancun just two months before the event. This produced a tournament beset by bad weather and poor organisation, played in front of a temporary 4,000-seat stadium on a pitch that players described as uneven and unpredictable. A longer-term deal has promised stability for an event that has failed since 2020, but has failed to stem criticism of a country that criminalizes homosexuality and does not give women equal rights to men.
WTA president Steve Simon said last year that Saudi organizers are as “committed as we are to building the event and having a good turnout.”
In Riyadh, Simon’s replacement as CEO Portia Archer said the WTA Tour respects the values of the countries where tournaments are hosted. She said she had “made a mistake” after initially stating that host countries do not necessarily have to have values that align with those of the WTA. Tour.
As the kingdom’s wider tennis ambitions have shrunk – the proposed Masters 1000 tournament and a billion dollars in investment last year set the sport on fire – this event is something of a mutual testing exercise for the PIF and the WTA (and the ATP, which will be watched with interest). How the players feel, how well attended it is and the reaction of the wider tennis world will all determine both sides’ strategies for more discussions about the future of the sport in the coming months.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Tennis, Women’s tennis
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