Tennis News

Elina Svitolina

2016 Quick Hits
Week 1 Ranking: No.20
Year-End Ranking: No.14 (Career-High No.14, March 7)
Season Highlights: Title at Kuala Lumpur, finals at New Haven & Zhuhai
Best Major Result: QF (French Open)

14 Days until the 2017 #WTA season! pic.twitter.com/DIIg2qWhUX

— WTA (@WTA) 18 de diciembre de 2016

2017 Outlook

Some players adhere to the policy of “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” but Elina Svitolina isn’t one of those people.

After a career-best season – which saw her rise to her highest ranking of No.14, upset two different WTA World No.1s, pocket a title at Kuala Lumpur and reach the finals at New Haven and Zhuhai – the always-improving Svitolina announced a new coaching team with the goal of getting herself past the final hurdles and cementing her spot at the game’s upper echelons.

A busy off-season schedule in 2015 stunted Svitolina’s progress earlier this year, but she learned her lesson and heads into 2017 with a clear objective:

“Of course, the main goal is to be Top 10,” Svitolina told WTA Insider at the Huajin Securities WTA Elite Trophy Zhuhai. “I’ll try to have a normal off-season this time, work really hard physically, and mentally. It’s all about the small details, so I’ll be trying to work on those and make little changes.”

Looking ahead to 2017, Ukraine’s No.1 player will start out the year rested and in prime position to make big gains. With just a handful of points to defend in the first two months of the year, Svitolina looks ever closer to a big leap into the WTA’s highest rankings.

Viktorija Golubic’s game has always been easy on the eye. And if recent evidence is anything to go by she is now successfully marrying this style with plenty of substance.

In the final of the Ladies Championship Gstaad, Golubic upset Kiki Bertens to become the tour’s newest – and arguably most popular – silverware owner. The 23-year-old’s swashbuckling play was a ray of sunshine in an otherwise drab week, and her rousing comeback ensured there was a home victor on the WTA’s return to Swiss soil.

Success in Gstaad vaulted Golubic into the Top 100 for the first time. Now perched at No.72, she will gain direct entry into a major for the first time at this summer’s US Open and with relatively few points to defend for the remainder of 2016 she has a good opportunity to improve further.

Golubic, though, is not the only player on the charge:

Kiki Bertens (+5, No.26 to No.21): Bertens announced herself to the tennis world with a win-laden end to the clay court season. Back on the dirt and she was back to winning ways, knocking out crowd favorite and top seed Timea Bacsinszky en route to the Gstaad final. Although she was unable to make it a Swiss double against Golubic, she is now within touching distance of a Top 20 debut.

Anastasija Sevastova (+17 No.66 to No.49): In Bucharest, Anastasija Sevastova continued her steady re-ascent up the ranks with another impressive week, knocking out Sara Errani and Laura Siegemund before running out of steam against Simona Halep in the final.

Vania King (+24, No.144 to No.120): Another of Halep’s victims, Vania King, played some typically positive tennis to reach her first semifinal since 2014. There she gave the home crowd a real scare, too, leading Halep by a set and a break before being denied in a high-quality decider.

Rebeka Masarova (+483, No.797 to No.314): Earlier this summer, Rebeka Masarova tripped up a couple of highly touted rivals to lift the junior French Open title. It was a performance that earned her a wildcard for Gstaad, a chance she grabbed with both hands by knocking out Jelena Jankovic, Anett Kontaveit and Annika Beck to go further than any other WTA main draw debutante since 2012.

Simona Halep

2016 Quick Hits
Week 1 Ranking: No.2
Year-End Ranking: No.4
Season Highlights: Madrid, Bucharest, Montréal Champion, Singapore RR
Best Major Result: QF (Wimbledon, US Open)

2017 Outlook

An injury-addled off-season left Halep unprepared for the season to come, and tough losses at the Australian Open and Middle East left many to question what was to come next from the former World No.2

Halep began to slowly silence the doubters by March, reaching back-to-back quarterfinals in Indian Wells and Miami, and truly soared once she hit her beloved clay, winning her second Premier Mandatory title at the Mutua Madrid Open. The Romanian star credited the success at one of her favorite tournaments – run by fellow Romanian Ion Tiriac – with a new approach alongisde coach Darren Cahill.

“I had many days training with Darren,” she explained to WTA Insider. “I wanted that. I asked him when he made the schedule in January that I wanted this week to prepare with him here in Madrid. So I knew what I want to do.

“It’s much better to come a few days earlier. You feel the courts, you feel the atmosphere of the tournament, and you feel like you are into it already when the tournament starts.”

Halep continued to feel the courts this summer, winning two more titles at home in Bucharest and Montréal, where she also paired Monica Niculescu to reach the doubles final.

“It was very different because I’m not used to playing doubles,” she said in her Rogers Cup Champions Corner. “I got a little bit tired in the end. But it also helped me to play some doubles matches because I practiced the return, the serve. That helped me a lot in singles; I had tough opponents there. It’s been a great week.”

The former French Open finalist played one of her most impressive matches in Flushing, pushing then-World No.1 Serena Williams to the brink at the US Open.

“It was tough,” she said of the loss. “It is tough. I’m a little bit sad, but I have just to take the positives, because I have a lot going ahead.”

For the youngest woman in the Top 4, there is certainly still more ahead, and plenty more to come in 2017.

Agnieszka Radwanska

2016 Quick Hits
Week 1 Ranking: No.5
Year-End Ranking: No.3
Season Highlights: Title at Shenzhen, New Haven, Beijing
Best Major Result: SF (Australian Open)

3 Days left until the 2017 #WTA season! pic.twitter.com/TVSyPn5BV1

— WTA (@WTA) December 29, 2016

2017 Outlook

Having made her big breakthrough with victory at last year’s BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global, 2016 saw Agnieszka Radwanska consolidate her place at the very top of the tennis tree.

The Pole set the tone for another campaign characterized by its consistency in January, triumphing at Shenzhen before reaching the semifinals at the Australian Open where her winning run was finally halted by an on-song Serena Williams.

This good form continued throughout the year, but a major breakthrough proved elusive until Beijing, where she outclassed the high-flying Johanna Konta to collect a third Premier Mandatory crown. Despite playing herself into form at the perfect moment, there was to be no repeat in Singapore, her reign ended by a comprehensive semifinal defeat to Angelique Kerber.

Aside from at Melbourne Park, she was unable to make it beyond the last 16 at the majors, and the principal question surrounding Radwanska in 2017 will be whether she can defuse the game’s big hitters to go deep into a 128-player draw. To date, the 27-year-old’s only Grand Slam final came at Wimbledon in 2012, yet the recent success of fellow counterpuncher Angelique Kerber offers hope that a return is within her grasp.

Her 11th year on tour will begin in Shenzhen, where prize money totaling $750,000 – the highest of any International event on the calendar – has enticed a stellar field. Joining Radwanska in the draw will be two other members of the Top 10, Simona Halep and Johanna Konta. After this, she will head to Sydney to finalize preparations for the Australian Open alongside Kerber and Dominika Cibulkova.