WTA Tour 2022: A look at the players who finished in the top five at the end of the season

Iga Swiatek had one of the most successful tennis seasons in history, winning 67 matches and eight tournaments, including two Grand Slams.

Iga Swiatek in a file photo (image: twitter)
By Nilavro Ghosh | Dec 1, 2022 | 5 Min Read follow icon Follow Us

The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) organised the 2022 WTA Tour (branded as the 2022 Hologic WTA Tour for sponsorship reasons) as the global elite women’s professional tennis circuit for the 2022 tennis season. The Grand Slam tournaments (supervised by the International Tennis Federation (ITF)), the WTA 1000 tournaments, the WTA 500 tournaments, the WTA 250 tournaments, the Billie Jean King Cup (organised by the ITF), and the year-end championships were all part of the 2022 WTA Tour calendar (the WTA Finals).

As part of the international sports response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the WTA, ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals), ITF, and the four Grand Slam tournaments agreed that players from Belarus and Russia would not be allowed to compete under their national names or flags, but would remain eligible to compete in events until further notice.  The ATP and WTA also announced on 20 May 2022 that ranking points would not be awarded for Wimbledon due to the All England Club’s decision to prohibit players from Belarus and Russia from competing in the tournament.

Outside of injured players, Garbine Muguruza has experienced the greatest drop in rating this season. Caroline Garcia, on the other hand, is arguably the most-improved singles player overall. Her incredible year took off this summer after she won the title in Bad Homburg. She finished the season with four titles, including the most important of her career: the WTA finals.

Here are the players who finished 2022 in the top 5 ranked 1 to 5.

Iga Swiatek

Iga Swiatek had one of the most successful tennis seasons in history, winning 67 matches and eight tournaments, including two Grand Slams. Her results place her as the world’s best player on both hard and clay courts. Swiatek’s only low ranking was on grass, where Ons Jabeur had a strong season. She won a WTA 500 event in Berlin and lost in the Wimbledon final, making her the No. 1 grass player in 2022.

Her tennis season began on January 3, 2022, with the start of the 2022 WTA Tour. The Pole began the season ranked ninth in the world. During the season, the Polish player rose to the twenty-eighth position in the world singles rankings. During the season, the team went on a 37-match winning streak, the longest in the twenty-first century.

Ons Jabeur

Ons Jabeur, seeded eighth at the Madrid Open, reached her first WTA 1000 final, defeating Belinda Bencic and Simona Halep before defeating Ekaterina Alexandrova in the semifinals to become the first Arab and African player to do so. She beat Jessica Pegula in the final to become the first African woman to win a WTA 1000 title, the ninth different winner of the Madrid Open, and the 38th different winner of a WTA 1000 tournament (since 2009). She reached her second consecutive WTA 1000 final at the Italian Open.

She won the German Open in Berlin as the top seed after Belinda Bencic retired in the second set of the final. As a result, she will reach a new career high of world No. 3 on June 20, 2022. Jabeur made her WTA Finals debut in Fort Worth. In her second match of the group stage, she defeated Jessica Pegula in three sets. She did, however, finish her campaign in the round robin stage, losing two of her three matches against Aryna Sabalenka and Maria Sákkari. She finished her best season ranked No. 2 in the WTA rankings.

Jessica Pegula

Jessica Pegula reached her second WTA 1000 final at the Guadalajara Open, defeating four former Grand Slam champions in the quarterfinals and semifinals: Elena Rybakina, Bianca Andreescu, and Sloane Stephens, and Victoria Azarenka.  She defeated fourth seed Maria Sakkari in straight sets to win her second and most important singles title of her career, becoming the first American woman to do so since Madison Keys in 2019.

She also reached the quarterfinals in doubles with Coco Gauff at the same tournament. As a result, on October 24, 2022, she achieved a new career-high ranking of world No. 3 in both singles and doubles. Pegula lost all of her group stage matches at the WTA Finals, winning only one set in three. At the same tournament, she and partner Gauff surprisingly did not win a single match and finished last in the doubles round-robin stage.

Caroline Garcia

She reached the quarterfinals of a WTA 1000 event for the first time in four years, since the Canadian Open in 2018, as a qualifier, defeating world No. 3 Maria Sakkari, her second top-3 win of 2022, and Elise Mertens. She then defeated world No. 8 and seventh seed Jessica Pegula to reach her first WTA 1000 semifinal since Madrid in 2018, becoming the tournament’s first qualifier to do so since Akgul Amanmuradova in 2007.

Garcia arrived in New York as the 17th seed, riding an eight-match winning streak that began in the first round of qualifying in Cincinnati. [60] In the first four rounds, she defeated lucky loser Kamilla Rakhimova, Anna Kalinskaya, 2019 champion Bianca Andreescu, and Alison Riske-Amritraj to reach the quarterfinals for the first time in her career at the US Open and the second time at a major. She beat 12th seed Coco Gauff in the quarterfinals, but lost in straight sets to fifth seed Ons Jabeur in her first major semifinal, snapping a 13-match winning streak. As a result, on September 12, 2022, she re-entered the top ten in singles.

In the first round of the Guadalajara Open, she defeated Rebecca Marino to qualify for the WTA Finals. Bertrand Perret resigned as her coach one week before the WTA Finals. She was seeded sixth and was assigned to Group Tracy Austin of the WTA Finals. In the semifinals, she defeated Maria Sakkari in straight sets. She went on to win the biggest title of her career, defeating Aryna Sabalenka in straight sets, and reclaimed her career-high world No. 4 position in the singles rankings.

Aryna Sabalenka

In the quarterfinals of the Silicon Valley Classic, Sabalenka was defeated by Daria Kasatkina. She then competed in the Canadian Open, where she was defeated in the third round by Coco Gauff. Her best result since Stuttgart came at the Cincinnati Open, where she reached the semifinals as the sixth seed, defeating Anna Kalinskaya, Shelby Rogers, and Zhang Shuai before losing in three sets to eventual champion Caroline Garcia. She then had her best season run at the US Open. She reached the semifinals after defeating Catherine Harrison, Kaia Kanepi, Clara Burel, 19th seed Danielle Collins, and 22nd seed & former World No. 1 Karolna Pliskova, matching her previous best result from 2021.

For the second year in a row, she qualified for the WTA Finals. There, she lost to Caroline Garcia after defeating world No. 3 Jessica Pegula and No. 2 Ons Jabeur in the round robin stage, as well as No. 1 Iga Swiatek in the semifinals. She joined Steffi Graf (1999 Roland Garros), Serena Williams (2002 Miami Open), and Venus Williams as the fourth woman to defeat the top three players in the same tournament (2008 WTA Finals)

WTA Grand Slam winners 2022

Australian Open – Ashleigh Barty

French Open – Iga Swiatek

Wimbledon – Elena Rybakina

US Open – Iga Swiatek





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