Text: Daniil Salnikov
In the last week of October, the top eight tennis players gathered in Singapore, the Russian leaders in Vienna, and Federer again in Basel.
BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global
Prize fund: $ 7 000 00.
Coating: hard, room.
Date: October 22-29.
Time difference with Moscow: +5 hours.
Participants: Simona Halep (1), Garbiñe Muguruza (2), Carolina Pliskova (3), Elina Svitolina (4), Venus Williams (5), Caroline Wozniacki (6), Jelena Ostapenko (7), Caroline Garcia (8).
Full list of participants.
Current winner: Dominika Cibulkova.
The final WTA Championship will be played in Singapore for the 48th time; it is held with the participation of the eight strongest tennis players in the world at the end of the season. The tournament was first held in 1971, but in 1986 there were already two draws. The competition constantly changed location - Houston, Boca Rayton, Los Angeles, New York, Oakland, Munich, Madrid, Doha and Istanbul. Since 2014, the competition between the eight strongest female tennis players in the world has been played in Singapore, and the license belongs to it until 2018 inclusive. Since 2019, among other competitors, St. Petersburg has also been competing for the tournament.
The record holder for the number of titles at the final WTA tournament is Martina Navratilova - eight. Steffi Graf and Serena Williams have five wins each, Chris Evert has four, Monica Seles and Kim Clijsters have three each. Of the Russians, the tournament was once won by Maria Sharapova (2004), and she was also a finalist two more times (2007, 2012), as was Vera Zvonareva (2008). After her victory in 2014, Serena twice qualified for the eight, but both times she refused to participate. In the current draw, in the absence of Sharapova, Serena and Azarenka, there is a large rotation of participants. There are three debutants in the tournament - Svitolina, Ostapenko and Garcia. Karolina Pliskova, Muguruza and Halep played from one to three last rallies. Caroline Wozniacki returned after missing two rallies. And the 2008 champion and 2009 finalist Venus Williams has not played at all in the last 7 final tournaments. Let us also note that 7 out of 8 participants in the tournament in Singapore, based on its results, can become the first racket of the world. But this is a topic for another discussion.
According to the competition regulations, the participants at the preliminary stage, based on the results of the draw, were divided into two groups - four tennis players each. Red group – Halep, Svitolina, Wozniacki, Garcia; White group - Muguruza, Pliskova, V. Williams, Ostapenko. Based on the results of the group round, the two best athletes advance to the playoffs, where, starting from the semifinals, the winner will ultimately be determined.
Participants in the final WTA Championship 2017:
V. Williams – 4 tournaments, 11 wins / 5 losses, best result – title (2008);
Wozniacki – 4, 9/7, final (2010);
Halep – 3, 5/6, final (2014);
Muguruza – 2, 4/3, semi-final (2015);
Kar.Pliskova – 1, 1/2, group;
Svitolina – debut;
Ostapenko – debut;
Garcia - debut.
Prize fund: € 2 621 850.
Coating: hard, room.
Date: October 23-29.
Time difference with Moscow
Participants: Alexander Zverev (4), Dominic Thiem (7), Pablo Carreno Busta (10), Kevin Anderson (15), Sam Querrey (16), John Isner (17), Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (18), Luca Puy ( 22), Karen Khachanov (32), Andrey Rublev (37), Grigor Dimitrov (WC), Ernests Gulbis (WC).
Refused to participate: Milos Raonic (11), Tomas Berdych (19), Gael Monfils (36), Ivo Karlovic (49).
Current winner: Andy Murray.
The tournament in Vienna has been played since 1974 at the Winner Stadthalle arena. This is the home stadium of the Austrian national hockey team, in addition, the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 was held here. Since 2009, after the calendar reform, the tournament in the Austrian capital belonged to the ATP-250 category. However, in 2015, it exchanged licenses with a higher-status tournament in Valencia - ATP-500. And starting next year, the Spanish tournament ceased to exist altogether. Many famous tennis players won the competition in Vienna - Goran Ivanisevic, Andre Agassi, Boris Becker, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Juan Martin del Potro, Andy Murray. The Briton did not come to defend his title because he could not recover from his injury. The top two seeds are Alexander Zverev and Dominic Thiem. Two Russians will also play in the competition - Karen Khachanov and Andrey Rublev.
Prize fund: € 2 291 860.
Coating: hard, room.
Date: October 23-29.
Time difference with Moscow: -1 hour (29 October: -2 hours).
Participants: Roger Federer (2), Marin Cilic (5), David Goffin (12), Roberto Bautista Agut (13), Jack Sock (21), Juan Martin del Potro (24), Misha Zverev (27), Adrian Mannarino (31).
Refused to participate: Rafael Nadal (1), Nick Kyrgios (20), Gilles Muller (23).
Current winner: Marin Cilic.
The Swiss Indoor Court Championships are held in Munichstein, a suburb of Basel, at the St. Jakobshalle. The unsurpassed record holder here is local favorite Roger Federer - 7 titles. This year he is seeded number one, because after a trip to Asia, Rafael Nadal decided to withdraw from the competition.
Wonderful things are happening in Russian tennis. Moscow and St. Petersburg staged a race to see who has more tournaments. City on the Neva was leading 2:1, but starting next year it will be 2:2. Peter has a men's St. Petersburg Open and women's Ladies Trophy. Moscow is rightfully proud of the Kremlin Cup, where both men and women play, and now it will also have a separate competition for ladies - the July International tournament on the open clay courts of the Juan Antonio Samaranch National Tennis Center of Russia.
Why the WTA's generosity? It's simple. The organizers of the Moscow tournament bought a license from the competition in Båstad (Sweden), which took place in the last week of July. This place on the calendar cannot be called convenient. The new Moscow tournament will be held on clay right before the start of the American series on hard court, where all the strongest tennis players will probably go. It is unlikely that Maria Sharapova will want to play on the ground before this, but the organizers of the new tournament promise to do everything possible to bring her to Moscow again.
Results
WTA Final Tournament - 2017 (Singapore)
The prize fund is $7,000,000. Hard. Group stage. 3rd round
White group. Ostapenko (Latvia, 7) - Kar. Pliskova (Czech Republic, 3) 6:3, 6:1; V. Williams (USA, 5) - Muguruza (Spain, 2) 7:5, 6:4
Final position: 1. Pliskova (Czech Republic) - 2 wins/1 loss; 2. V. Williams (USA) - 2/1; 3. Muguruza (Spain) - 1/2; 4. Ostapenko (Latvia) - 1/2
The WTA Finals, the final tournament of the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) with a prize fund of $7 million, has started in Singapore. This year, three newcomers are taking part in it, and seven out of eight tennis players have a chance to become the first racket of the world at the end of the year. In two matches in the White Group, Karolina Pliskova left no chance for Venus Williams, and Wimbledon champion Garbine Muguruza also beat the sensational Roland Garros winner Jelena Ostapenko in two games.
The final WTA tournament, which is being held in Singapore for the fourth year in a row, can be considered unique. Firstly, there has never been such a level of competition in the fight for first place at the end of the year at this competition. The fact is that, theoretically, seven tennis players can lead the ranking at once, and four of them - the current leader, Romanian Simona Halep, Spaniard Garbine Muguruza, Ukrainian Elina Svitolina and Czech Karolina Pliskova - are quite realistic candidates for leadership. For example, in order to beat Halep, who is only 40 rating points ahead of her, Muguruza needs to win just one more match. And Pliskova and Svitolina may well count on a favorable option for themselves.
Secondly, compared to last year, more than half - five out of eight tennis players - have updated the composition of the tournament participants. In addition, there were three newcomers in the Singapore eight - Elina Svitolina, Elena Ostapenko from Latvia and Frenchwoman Caroline Garcia.
Thirdly, it has not happened for a long time that the division of tennis players into groups so clearly corresponded to the manner of their play. In the White group were Garbine Muguruza, Caroline Pliskova, Venus Williams and Jelena Ostapenko, who prefer more powerful tennis compared to Simona Halep, Elina Svitolina, Caroline Wozniacki and Caroline Garcia from the Red group.
The starting day of the WTA Finals did not bring any surprises. First, Pliskova defeated Venus Williams in just 1 hour 12 minutes with a score of 6:2, 6:2. The 37-year-old American, who is taking part in the final tournament for the fifth time, but for the first time in the last eight years, is the oldest participant since 1994. She did not serve very well, making six double faults, and was unable to use her advantage in experience, while the Czech, sometimes not very consistent, demonstrated a fairly accurate and reliable game for herself.
The second meeting of the day - Muguruza-Ostapenko - turned out to be more interesting. On a relatively slow hard court surface, laid on a wooden “cushion” at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, the Latvian tennis player, as usual, tried to act as aggressively as possible, but did not succeed. The Spaniard won 6:3, 6:4 in 1 hour 25 minutes and is thus now ahead of Halep in the rankings, who in turn will play Garcia on Monday.
Evgeniy Fedyakov
WTA ranking
1 (1). Simona Halep (Romania) - 5675 points. 2 (2). Garbiñe Muguruza (Spain) - 5635.3 (3). Karolina Pliskova (Czech Republic) - 5105. 4 (4). Elina Svitolina (Ukraine) - 5000. 5 (5). Venus Williams (USA) - 4642.6 (6). Caroline Wozniacki (Denmark) - 4640.7 (7). Elena Ostapenko (Latvia) - 4510. 8 (9). Caroline Garcia (France) - 3795.9 (10). Joanna Konta (Great Britain) - 3610. 10 (13). Kristina Mladenovic (France) - 2885. 11 (8). Svetlana Kuznetsova(Russia) - 2856. 12 (14). Coco Vandewey - 2819. 13 (15). Sloane Stevens (both - USA) - 2722. 14 (18). Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova(Russia) - 2425. 15 (21). Anastasia Sevastova (Latvia) - 2295. 16 (16). Madison Keys (USA) - 2213. 17 (20). Elena Vesnina(Russia) - 2195. 18 (27). Julia Goerges - 2060. 19 (11). Angelique Kerber (both - Germany) - 2042. 20 (23). Ashleigh Barty (Australia) - 2031… 24 (28). Daria Kasatkina(Russia) - 1950… 33 (33). Ekaterina Makarova(Russia) - 1580… 54 (67). Natalya Vikhlyantseva(Russia) - 1070… 60 (57). Maria Sharapova(Russia) - 1006… 73 (74). Ekaterina Alexandrova(Russia) - 830… 84 (86). Evgenia Rodina(Russia) - 752.
In brackets is the position in the previous week.
WTA and ATP tournaments
Final WTA tournament in Singapore. Prize fund - $7 million
White group. First round. Garbiñe Muguruza (Spain, 2)-Elena Ostapenko (Latvia, 7) 6:3, 6:4. Karolina Pliskova (Czech Republic, 3)-Venus Williams (USA, 5) 6:2, 6:2.
WTA Kremlin Cup tournament in Moscow. Prize fund - $855 thousand.
Final. Julia Goerges (Germany, 7) - Daria Kasatkina(Russia) 6:1, 6:2.
ATP Kremlin Cup tournament in Moscow. Prize fund - $745 thousand.
Final. Damir Dzumhur (Bosnia and Herzegovina, 6)-Richardas Berankis (Lithuania) 6:2, 1:6, 6:4.
ATP tournament in Stockholm. Prize fund - €590 thousand.
Final. Juan Martin Del Potro (Argentina, 4)-Grigor Dimitrov (Bulgaria, 1) 6:4, 6:2.
And here we go again: the final chord of the season will be given from October 22 to 29 in Singapore with the final WTA tournament. As always, the eight best representatives of women's tennis hope to win the unofficial world championship. The current winner, Dominika Cibulkova, does not have the opportunity to defend her title - she did not qualify for the competition. Last year's finalist Angelique Kerber is also not among the participants. Below is a brief analysis and attempt to predict the chances of all eight tennis players at the upcoming competition.
Simona Halep
The newly crowned first racket of the world, although she won only one title this year, was also able to reach the finals of Roland Garros, Cincinnati and Beijing. Participation in the decisive match in the Chinese capital, by the way, allowed her to become the new leader of world women's tennis. Otherwise, Halep’s 2017 season cannot be called outstanding. At the Australian and US Opens she lost in the first round, and at Wimbledon she was defeated in the quarterfinals by Johanna Konta. And, nevertheless, she became the first racket of the world!
: 1 (Madrid)
Age: 26 years old
Country: Romania
WTA: 3 (2014–2016)
Forecast: Halep just won first place in the world rankings. In any case, we can predict her participation in the semi-finals. At the same time, the two competitors look, in our opinion, stronger than her.
Garbiñe Muguruza
Garbine Muguruza is having the best season of his career so far. She won the Wimbledon final against former world No. 1 Venus Williams and also defeated Simona Halep in the tournament decider in Cincinnati. The Romanian, by the way, only two weeks ago was able to replace the Spaniard as the best tennis player on the planet. At the moment, only 40 WTA ranking points separate Halep and Muguruza, who are neck and neck.
Tournaments won in the 2017 season: 2 (Wimbledon and Cincinnati)
Age: 24 years old
Country: Spain
Past participations in the final tournamentWTA: 2 (2015–2016)
Forecast: In Cincinnati, Muguruza beat Pliskova and Halep. The athlete from Spain is rightfully considered one of the favorites of the WTA finals after a strong season. Looks like one of the most likely participants in the Singapore final.
Karolina Pliskova
Pliskova has also produced consistently good results this season, which is proven, in particular, by the three tournaments she won this year: in Brisbane, Doha and Eastbourne. However, what she undoubtedly lacked in 2017 was great success at the TBS. She reached the semifinals of Roland Garros, the quarterfinals in Melbourne and New York, and completely failed in the second round at Wimbledon. However, after Kerber dropped in the world rankings, the Czech became the world number one for eight weeks immediately after the English Open. At the final competition in Singapore, she has a chance to regain her lost crown. The fact that hard is her favorite surface will undoubtedly be in her favor.
Tournaments won in the 2017 season: 3 (Brisbane, Doha and Eastbourne)
Age: 25 years old
Country: Czech Republic
Past participations in the final tournamentWTA: 1 (2016)
Forecast: At last year's tournament, Pliskova was eliminated at the group stage, but this year she is clearly capable of more - in her best form, the Czech tennis player is an unconditional candidate for the final.
Elina Svitolina
The Ukrainian qualified for the WTA finals for the first time. On the court, she shines primarily with her two-handed backhand. Her biggest successes this year are victories at competitions in Dubai, Rome and Toronto. At the same time, she beat Caroline Wozniacki twice in two sets and Simona Halep once in three sets. During the current season, she was already the third racket in the world and can always spring a surprise. In addition, Svitolina has a chance to lead the world rankings at the end of the year, which, of course, will give her additional motivation.
Tournaments won in the 2017 season: 5 (Taipei, Dubai, Istanbul, Rome and Toronto)
Age: 23 years old
Country: Ukraine
Past participations in the final tournamentWTA: 0
Forecast: Among all the participants, the Ukrainian has the most trophies won this season. However, she lacks major success in the majors. Nevertheless, she seems to us to be a semi-finalist of the Singapore championship.
Venus Williams
The 37-year-old “grandmother” of the WTA tour, Venus Williams, was able to get to the final tournament in Singapore without winning a single trophy in the 2017 season. And yet: at the Australian Open and Wimbledon she played in the finals, losing to her younger sister Serena in Melbourne, and to Garbine Muguruza in London. In total, Williams competed in only 13 competitions this year. Like Roger Federer, who is almost equal in age, she tries to distribute her strength wisely. Her trump card in Singapore will certainly be her wealth of experience, which none of her competitors has.
Tournaments won in the 2017 season: 0
Age: 37 years old
Country: USA
Past participations in the final tournamentWTA: 4 (1999, 2002, 2008–2009)
Forecast: Most likely, she will be eliminated after the group stage. Williams didn't win a single tournament in 2017, and that's likely to remain the case in Singapore. However, the very participation in the final championship of the season after an eight-year pause is already a success for the American tennis player.
Caroline Wozniacki
This season, Caroline Wozniacki has already taken part in 22 tournaments and in this sense is the opposite of the “little played” Williams. However, the Dane has only one trophy to her name – in Tokyo. Prior to this, Wozniacki had failed six times in the finals and only after that, in October, she won the decisive match in the capital of Japan. In fact, she shows a fairly stable game in the 2017 season, but she often lacks just a little bit to outplay her top opponents in the most important matches. And at the TBS, her best achievement in 2017 was reaching the quarterfinals of Roland Garros.
Tournaments won in the 2017 season: 1 (Tokyo)
Age: 27 years old
Country: Denmark
Past participations in the final tournamentWTA: 4 (2009–2011 and 2014)
Forecast: Most likely, like Williams, she will finish her performances in Singapore after the group stage. Most of the time, Wozniacki allows her opponents to dictate the match, and her game lacks weapons with which she can hit her top opponents. Therefore, the final station at the final WTA tournament for the former world number one will be the group stage.
Elena Ostapenko
The Latvian, who is only 20 years old, is making a real sensation this year. Following the results of an outstanding season, she was not only able to win Roland Garros, beating Simona Halep in the final, but also became the first tennis player from Latvia to qualify for Singapore. Often for her the question arises like this: all or nothing. This was very clearly visible in the decisive match of the French Open, in which she initially lost 4-6, 0-3 due to numerous unforced errors, but then swept Halep off the court. So Ostapenko’s game is very exciting! Although, of course, she lacks experience and stability.
Tournaments won in the 2017 season: 2 (Roland Garros and Seoul)
Age: 20 years
Country: Latvia
Past participations in the final tournamentWTA: 0
Forecast: The youngest participant in the final tournament will undoubtedly try to annoy the representatives of the elite. But, nevertheless, her lack of experience will most likely play a cruel joke on her at the competition, and she will leave Singapore after the group round.
Caroline Garcia
Caroline Garcia was the last to qualify for the final tournament of the year - this became clear just two weeks ago. She won two tournaments in a row - in Wuhan and then, a week later, in Beijing - and after Konta withdrew from the Kremlin Cup, the Frenchwoman secured her first participation in the Singapore competition. In the decisive match of the Beijing competition, by the way, she managed to win in two sets over the first racket of the world, Simona Halep. Until 2017, she also performed very successfully in doubles. This year in Singapore she can play in her own free style.
Tournaments won in the 2017 season: 2 (Wuhan and Beijing)
Age: 24 years old
Country: France
Past participations in the final tournamentWTA: 0
Forecast: Although the fitness curve speaks in Garcia's favor and the Frenchwoman can boast of great success in doubles, the rest of the participants still have more experience. After the last busy weeks on tour, she may well not have enough strength, so most likely she will not make it past the group stage in Singapore.
GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE FINAL TOURNAMENTWTA
Venue: Singapore
Prize fund: 7 million US dollars
Coating: hard
Last year's final: Dominika Cibulkova–Angelique Kerber 6-3, 6-4
