Why defending a WTA Finals crown is one of the hardest jobs in tennis

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Only three women have repeated as the WTA Finals winner over the past quarter century. Coco Gauff, the defending champion here, is already discovering why.

“I think, A, it’s one of those tournaments you’re not guaranteed a spot in every year,” Gauff explained before this year-end tournament began. “Some people win and aren’t able to even qualify. B, the top eight in the world, it’s very hard to I think win this tournament in general, let alone replicate it back-to-back years.

“But I’m not thinking about that. I really just want to focus on my first match ahead. I think that’s what I did last year.”

A year ago, Gauff was a revelation, winning her last four matches -- two of them over No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka and No. 2 Iga Swiatek -- to win the crown with a memorable third-set tiebreak over Zheng Qinwen.

This year? Her opening match on Sunday against fellow American and good friend Jessica Pegula did not go nearly as well. There were a raft of double faults and missed forehands and a frustration level that was increasingly evident. At one point, Pegula hit an awkward shot that, although it bounced within range, Gauff didn’t even get off a proper swing at the ball.

The No. 3 seed faces possible elimination in a Tuesday match against No. 7 Jasmine Paolini.

“Yeah, every match here is tough,” Gauff said. “I played her in Wuhan, so I expect her to play differently than she did in that match. It’s another opportunity to be better and hopefully I can win that one to give myself a chance to qualify for the semis.”

`Really, really hard’

Eighteen-time Grand Slam singles champion Chris Evert lived for the summer, focusing primarily on the three majors -- Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the US Open.

“Most of the players peak during the summer,” Evert said. “After the [US] Open, I was done. It was a struggle for me to play Stuttgart and the other fall tournaments, even the year-end championship. It’s really, really hard.

“It’s at the end of the year. It’s the last tournament and everybody’s starting to feel a little fatigue, mentally and physically.”

And yet, Evert managed to win four WTA Finals singles titles, fourth on the all-time list, behind rival Martina Navratilova (8), Stefani Graf and Serena Williams (5 each).

Simona Halep qualified for the WTA Finals five times, reaching the final in her very first, in 2014, before losing to Williams 6-3, 6-0 in Singapore. It was Serena’s third consecutive title, marking the last time there was a repeat champion.

“It’s an honor to qualify, and you look forward to it,” Halep said. “But when you finally get there your level of energy is a little bit low. And then there is another reason, the biggest one:

“It’s also the players. You play a final of a mandatory tournament or a Grand Slam every match. This is also a big pressure.”

Sabalenka has collected four Grand Slam titles, but this big bucket-list item has so far eluded her. The closest Sabalenka’s come was three years ago in Fort Worth when she lost a tight match in the final to Caroline Garcia. The past two years, she’s fallen in the semifinals -- to eventual champions Iga Swiatek and Gauff.

“It might just be [the season’s] timing,” said Jason Stacy, Sabalenka’s fitness coach.

It’s also about peaking at just the right time. No one, even Sabalenka, can be consistently dialed in over 10-plus months.

Her tactical coach, Anton Dubrov, cited a different kind of timing.

“It’s the eight best players who perform the best during the year,” Dubrov said. “For example, one player might have their best matches at the beginning of the year. Maybe it’s helpful for them because they’re more fresh.

“But then you have [Jasmine] Paolini and [Elena] Rybakina, who played the last couple of tournaments. It might be helpful because they’re on a roll right now.”

Not a moment to relax

As the depth in women’s tennis has improved, it’s been increasingly difficult to repeat.

Navratilova won five straight singles titles in the mid-1980s and 10 of 11 doubles titles from 1980-89. Monica Seles was the singles champion from 1990-92 and Graf won three of four from 1993-96.

It’s difficult in any sport to finish the season with a brilliant burst two years in a row. It’s worth noting that the Los Angeles Dodgers just became the first Major League Baseball team to repeat since the New York Yankees, a quarter century ago.

Since 2015, no singles champion has managed to repeat. Three of them -- Dominika Cibulkova, Garbine Muguruza and Caroline Garcia -- failed to even qualify the following year. There were also extenuating circumstances: Williams was the World No. 1 in 2015 but shut it down after the US Open with an injury. In 2020, the year COVID-19 suffocated the schedule, the WTA Finals were canceled, meaning that there was no defending champion in 2021.

Elina Svitolina, the 2018 champion, came the closest, reaching the 2019 final as the No. 8 seed before falling to Ashleigh Barty 6-4, 6-3 in the final.

Since the turn of the century, it’s been only Kim Clijsters in 2003, Justine Henin in 2007 and Serena in 2013 and 2014.

“Only three players?” tournament director Muguruza asked, sounding slightly surprised. “That’s a really low number. First you need to already qualify, then survive the round-robin format, not getting injured in these intense matches.

“There is not one day that you can even relax a little bit. If it’s not the day of the match, the day in between you already need to prepare and know that now I’m playing against this other player, all the achievements they’ve done.

“It’s really mentally tough knowing that every single match you have to be on your 100 percent, or at least 80 percent.”

Evert agrees that, in the end, all the year-end champions share that single trait.

“There’s so many ups and downs,” Evert said. “You can have a strong first half of the year and then it’s hard to keep it up. Kudos to the depth of the women’s game and how close everybody is.

“Skill-set-wise and talent-wise, it very often comes down to the mental part. Who’s the most mentally focused?”

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