The WTA Finals prides itself as the “crown jewel” of its season and a stacked edition of the eight-player year-end tournament offers no shortage of star quality. Aryna Sabalenka is already guaranteed to finish the season at No 1 in the world, and a dominant one at that after winning the US Open. But a year that saw three other grand slam champions ensures she will face intense competition in her bid to win the Finals for the first time, and take home the biggest prize money of the season at a maximum of $5,235,000 - $235,000 more than her cheque for winning the US Open.
Sabalenka has been drawn into a group with French Open champion Coco Gauff, Jessica Pegula and Jasmine Paolini. Wimbledon champion Iga Swiatek is the second seed and will play Amanda Anisimova, Elena Rybakina and Australian Open champion Madison Keys in the other round-robin, with the top two players from each group advancing to the semi-finals. As well as the four different grand slam champions, the competition for the final four places in the Finals went down to the wire. With a late surge from Rybakina, Paolini qualified with a minuscule six more points than Mirra Andreeva, a two-time WTA 1000 champion this season at Indian Wells and Dubai.
Sabalenka’s victory at the US Open turned a consistent but frustrating season at the grand slams into a statement from the World No 1, and a first WTA Finals title would emphasise that. She will face a rematch of the French Open final when she plays Gauff, who is the reigning WTA Finals champion, and the first time they have met since burying the hatchet over the ungracious manner of Sabalenka’s post-final comments at Roland Garros. Pegula pushed Sabalenka close at the US Open semi-finals, with the American then beating her in Wuhan. Paolini reached two grand slam finals in 2024 but her follow-up year has been impressive too, winning her home Italian Open and leading Italy to the Billie Jean King Cup. The 29-year-old loves to defy expectations.
And where will we find Gauff? The American’s victory over Sabalenka in the Roland Garros final was the highlight of her season but it was followed by a first-round exit at Wimbledon and a difficult experience at the US Open where she was attempting to fix her troublesome serve mid-tournament. Since the end of the grand slam season, the 21-year-old has switched gears mentally and is building again towards January’s Australian Open. It led to her second biggest title of the season at the Wuhan WTA 1000, where she defeated Pegula in the final. Suddenly, Gauff looks like she can be a contender again.
In some ways, the player of the season on the WTA Tour is Anisimova, who is the only player to be making her debut at the Finals. She began the season unseeded at the Australian Open but her big-hitting game then caught fire. The American’s victory over Swiatek in the US Open quarter-finals, just a few weeks over losing 6-0 6-0 to the same player in the Wimbledon final, was one of the performances and stories of the season. Despite two defeats in grand slam finals this season, the 24-year-old has also won WTA 1000 titles, including in Beijing during the Asian swing. If Anisimova comes out swinging, she can be a contender - although one of the curiosities of the week is that she will be playing Rybakina and Keys for the first time in her career.
Keys will be returning to action after taking two months off following her first-round defeat at the US Open, with her place in the Finals long secured after her fairytale Australian Open triumph in January. On the opposite end of the scale is former Wimbledon champion Rybakina, who punched her ticket after finding some form with a late run of results. For Rybakina, the ultimate test will be against Swiatek, who has won all four of their matches since season. Martina Navratilova, the tennis great, called Swiatek’s season an “enigma” by her previous standards - no one quite saw her Wimbledon title coming, while results elsewhere have been mixed.
WTA Finals draw
Stefanie Graf Group: Aryna Sabalenka (1), Coco Gauff (3), Jessica Pegula (5), Jasmine Paolini (8)
Serena Williams Group: Iga Swiatek (2), Amanda Anisimova (4), Elena Rybakina (6), Madison Keys (7)
The WTA Finals, meanwhile, has reached the second edition of its three-year deal with Saudi Arabia, which has strengthened its ties to tennis in recent weeks by announcing a new ATP Masters event from 2028. Riyadh stepped in following a disastrous WTA Finals held in Cancun, Mexico in 2023, with the WTA announcing the country’s first professional women’s tennis event despite criticism from former players Navratilova and Chris Evert over its human rights record. Attendances on non-weekend days at last year’s tournament in Riyadh were extremely low - with just a few hundred people in a 5,000-capacity indoor arena for some round robin matches.
“We're bringing tennis to a new audience and that takes time to build,” the WTA said last year. "Our aim is to grow the WTA Finals and build attendance over the term of the three-year partnership.” The stars on display in the “crown jewel” of the tour and the biggest prize pot of the season deserves a crowd and atmosphere to match.
