The 2025 WTA Finals is set to get underway on the 1st of November. It will conclude on the 8th of the month, by which point the eight best singles players and eight best doubles pairings will have earnt their share of the massive $15.5m (approximately £12m) prize fund.
The event is being held in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh for the second year of a three-year deal. Twelve months ago US star Coco Gauff triumphed in the singles and it is that part of the Finals that we will focus on here.
US Dominate Eight-Player Event
The eight qualified players are:
| Player | Country | World Ranking |
|---|---|---|
| Aryna Sabalenka | Belarus | 1 |
| Iga Swiatek | Poland | 2 |
| Coco Gauff | USA | 3 |
| Amanda Anisimova | USA | 4 |
| Jessica Pegula | USA | 5 |
| Elena Rybakina | Kazakhstan | 6 |
| Madison Keys | USA | 7 |
| Jasmine Paolini | Italy | 8 |
With America boasting four players at the finals, there is every chance we will see another US winner. Gauff will be hoping to defend her crown but the other three USA representatives will all feel they have a chance.
That said, the top two in the world rankings, Sabalenka and Swiatek, are way clear of the rest of the field in terms of points in the current standings. They shared the last two Grand Slams of 2025 and between them have now won nine of the last 15 available. They will take some stopping on the hard courts used for this event. Mind you, they were the top two 12 months ago and while Sabalenka made the semis, her Polish rival was eliminated in a very tight group.
Format
As usual the Finals will see the eight stars split into two groups, as below:
Steffi Graf Group
Sabalenka will play Gauff, Pegula and Paolini at the group phase. It is a standard round-robin format, with each player facing one another in a best of three sets match. The standings are determined by match wins, with various tiebreakers used to separate players in the event of a two- or three-way tie.
Serena Williams Group
The second group features the remaining four players: Swiatek, Anisimova, Rybakina and Keys. Mirra Andreeva and Ekaterina Alexandrova are on standby in the event of any player withdrawing but typically the eight named players will face off.
As one might expect, the winners of each group face the runner-up from the other group in the semis, with the victors of those games then making it through to the final. Sabalenka is the favourite for glory but she has never won this event. Back in 2022 she made the final but was beaten in straight sets by French star Caroline Garcia.
As said, Gauff is the defending champion, while Swiatek won in 2023. The latter demolished Pegula 6-1, 6-0 two years ago and the US player will be hoping she can once again make it to the final in order to give a better account of herself.
Will we see Another First-time Winner?
Women’s tennis has long lacked the same sort of ongoing rivalry at the top of the sport that has made the men’s game so interesting, first in the era of the big three and now with the battle between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner. Although Sabalenka and Swiatek have dominated the majors to an extent and perhaps have the potential for a sustained rivalry, there remains an openness about women’s tennis.
For a long time, most tournaments have begun with the feeling that almost anyone could win if they produce their best tennis for a week or two. This partly explains why we have not seen a repeat winner of this tournament since Serena Williams claimed her fifth Finals title back in 2014.
Rather incredibly, the past nine winners (there was no event in 2020) have all been first-time champions. Will we see another to make it 10 in a row? Or will Sabalenka prevail to further cement her spot at the top of the rankings? If she wins every game then she will earn 1,500 points, but with fatigue always a factor in these end-of-season events, it might be wise to expect the unexpected.