As the WTA Tour Finals round-robin stages progress, Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff have qualified for the semifinals, where they are joined by Zheng Qinwen.
Sabalenka was drawn with Jasmine Paolini, Elena Rybakina and Zheng Qinwen in the group stage, which began on November 2 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
World No. 2 Iga Swiatek, looking to overhaul Sabalenka as world No. 1, was drawn to face Coco Gauff, against whom she has a 11-1 record, Jessica Pegula, who beat her in the U.S. Open quarterfinals, and Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova:
Sabalenka edged ahead 3-2 in her head to head with Paolini by winning 6-3, 7-5 Monday. After easing through the first set and going 4-2 up in the second, the result looked a formality, but Paolini battled back to 5-5 before Sabalenka’s pressure told. When Gauff came through an error-ridden Swiatek 6-3, 6-4 on Thursday, the American qualified for the semifinals and in so doing confirmed Sabalenka’s position as year-end world No. 1.
Sabalenka will face Rybakina Wednesday in a head to head she leads 6-3.
Rybakina thrashed the Belarusian in their most recent meeting on a hard court in the 2024 Brisbane final, but she had not played a competitive match since the first round of the U.S. Open before arriving in Saudi Arabia, withdrawing from numerous tournaments with injury and illness throughout the year. Her early results, including three titles and two finals, kept her in contention for the year-end event.
Though Rybakina lost her first two matches in Riyadh, Paolini triumphing 7-6(5), 6-4 before Zheng kept her hopes of qualification alive with a 7-6(4), 3-6, 6-1 win, she sees the tournament as an exercise in assessing her level and building up her match toughness.
Those results left Zheng and Paolini in a straight shootout to qualify for the semifinals, which Zheng won at a canter 6-1, 6-1.
In Swiatek’s first competitive outing with new coach Wim Fissette, she came back from a slow start to beat Krejcikova 4-6, 7-5, 6-2, taking control of the match as it went on. Gauff, who has shown renewed confidence on her forehand since splitting with coach Brad Gilbert — despite some shaky serving performances — was always in control of her opening match against compatriot Pegula, easing to victory 6-3, 6-2.
Pegula, who has looked out of form throughout, then succumbed 3-6, 3-6 to Krejcikova, eliminating the American from the tournament. Swiatek now needs to defeat Pegula to make the semifinals, but also needs the already-qualified Gauff to defeat Krejcikova. A Krejcikova win will eliminate Swiatek no matter her result against Pegula.
The eight players who qualified were split 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 seedings follow the players’ rankings in the ‘WTA Race,’ the table which only counts ranking points earned in 2024.
Each player then plays three round-robin matches. The top two players from each group contest the semifinals, with the winners meeting in the final.
This year, Barbora Krejcikova has qualified as the eighth player despite being No. 12 in the race. Krejcikova won Wimbledon, defeating Jasmine Paolini in the final, and a Grand Slam champion who finishes between No. 8 and N0. 20 in the race in the year that they won their title automatically qualifies for the event.
Iga Swiatek won the 2023 WTA Tour Finals in Cancun, Mexico, thrashing Pegula 6-1, 6-0 in the final. The current world No. 2 won all five of her matches last year, overhauling Aryna Sabalenka to end the year as world No. 1.
The total prize money is $15.25million (£11.76m), which is a record for the event. Prize money is allocated per match win, and is structured so that the champion will take home $5.15m (£3.96m) if they go through the event undefeated with five wins (three round-robin wins, a semifinal win, and then victory in the final).
The winner of the final will receive $2.5m (£1.9m) while the winner of each semifinal will receive $1.27m (£978,000); the prize for a round-robin match win is $350,000 (£269,500) and each player receives $335,000 (£257,900) just for appearing at the event.
The prize pool is over $6million richer than the 2023 event in Cancun, and the prize for the winner is larger than any of the four Grand Slams, the largest of which is the U.S. Open at $3.6m (£2.77m).
Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Sport and the Saudi Tennis Federation (STF) completed a three-year deal for the WTA Tour Finals in April this year. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) already sponsors the ATP and WTA world rankings, and this deal is currently the biggest element of the kingdom’s push into tennis. Saudi Arabia has designs on a coveted 1000-level tour event, but plans for that tournament have currently stalled on the most basic principles, including when it would be played and whether or not it would be a combined event, in which both ATP and WTA players play at the same venue in the same fortnight. It is not expected to come to any kind of fruition until at least 2027, if not 2028.
A deal was close in the summer of 2023, but the WTA backed down after prominent criticism of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record and treatment of women from prominent former players including Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova. That left the WTA scrambling for a host city, eventually alighting on Cancun just two months before the event. This produced a tournament beset by bad weather and poor organization, played in front of a temporary 4,000-seat stadium on a court that players described as uneven and unpredictable. A longer term deal has the promise of stability for an event that has floundered since 2020, but has not stopped criticism of a country which criminalizes homosexuality and does not give women equal rights to men.
WTA chairman Steve Simon last year told that Saudi organizers are as “committed as we are to build and have good attendance for the event.”
In Riyadh, Simon’s replacement as chief executive Portia Archer said that the WTA Tour respects the values of the countries in which it hosts tournaments, saying she “misspoke” after initially stating that host countries need not necessarily have values that align with those of the WTA Tour.
With the contraction of the kingdom’s wider ambitions in tennis — its proposal for a Masters 1000 tournament and $1billion of investment last year set the sport aflame — this event is something of a mutual test exercise for the PIF and the WTA (and the ATP, which will be watching with interest). How the players feel, how well it is attended, and the response of the wider tennis world will all inform both sides’ strategies for more discussions on the future of the sport in the coming months.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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