Tennis News

It’s time to vote for October’s WTA Player of the Month!

Have a look at the nominees and cast your vote before Thursday at 11:59pm ET! The winner will be announced Friday, November 13.

October 2015 WTA Player Of The Month Finalists

Agnieszka Radwanska: The former World No.2 returned to the Top 5 after beating a trio of big names to capture her first-ever WTA Finals title at the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global. Looking out of the tournament after losing her first two matches, Radwanska reversed her fortunes by trouncing top seed Simona Halep and took her newfound confidence into the semifinals, where she recovered from a set down to defeat Garbiñe Muguruza in three sets. Down a break in the third set of the final to Petra Kvitova, Radwanska relied on her signature guile to perform one last escape to emerge victorious in Singapore.

Petra Kvitova: Kvitova had a similarly Houdini-esque week in Singapore, reaching the semifinals despite winning only one match in round robin play, but redeeming herself in the semifinals by ousting returning rival Maria Sharapova in straight sets. The 2011 WTA Finals champion narrowly lost to Radwanska, but nonetheless ends her season on a high, finishing in the Top 8 for a fifth straight year.

Garbiñe Muguruza: Muguruza made the most of her opportunities after the US Open, turning around a post-Wimbledon lull – after reaching her first major final – to reach back-to-back finals at the Dongfeng Motor Wuhan Open and the China Open – winning in Beijing to clinch her debut in Singapore. Once there, she went undefeated in round robin play with wins over Kvitova, Angelique Kerber, and Lucie Safarova. Though she lost to eventual champion Radwanska, she still managed to earn a career-high ranking of No.3, where she will finish to cap a breakthrough season.

Venus Williams: Just missing out on a spot in Singapore, the former No.1 nonetheless ended her best season since 2010 in style by winning the inaugural Huajin Securities WTA Elite Trophy Zhuhai – returning to the Top 10 in the process. The American survived two tough battles against WTA Rising Stars Madison Keys and Zheng Saisai before hitting her stride against Roberta Vinci in the semifinals. In a tense final against Karolina Pliskova, Williams eased past the Czech WTA Rising Star to reach her highest ranking since 2011. 

2015 WTA Player of the Month Winners

September: Flavia Pennetta
August: Belinda Bencic
July: Samantha Stosur
June: Serena Williams
May: Serena Williams
April: Angelique Kerber
March: Serena Williams
February: Simona Halep
January: Serena Williams

A former tennis champion became tennis’ greatest champion as the sport moved into the Open Era. Mike Davies, a man who modernized the game – first with the World Championship Tennis league, and later as part of the Association of Tennis Professionals and International Tennis Federation – passed away last Monday at 79 years old.

The Brit modeled his game after some of the best Australian men to play the game, including Ken Rosewall, Roy Emerson, and Fred Stolle. But the Amateur Era in which he first played lacked the modern elements necessary to make tennis a twentieth century sport, so he made a then-controversial decision to turn professional. Before the Open Era began, only amateurs were eligible to play tournaments like Wimbledon and the US Open; Davies was thus barred from the tournaments he would go on to help.

A year after his playing days came to an end, he joined the team that made up the World Championship Tennis, where he worked tirelessly to make tennis TV-friendly as executive director. The yellow ball and 90-second changeovers all come back to Davies, who ushered in a golden era of the game that was bigger and better than any in the tennis world had ever seen before. In 1972, for example, the WCT final – played by Rosewall and Rod Laver – drew in 21 million viewers thanks to his TV contracts.

Davies later worked as the Marketing Director at both the ATP and ITF, reviving the former and tripling revnue at the latter – creating the Grand Slam Committee which holds court over the four major tournaments he’d been unable to play. In 2012, he was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

“Mike was one of the true pioneers of our sport,” said WTA CEO Steve Simon. “His vision and appetite for innovation laid the foundation for the presentation of professional tennis as know it today.

“His passion and commitment will be greatly missed.”

PALM BEACH GARDENS, FL, USA – She clinched it during the US Open, but this week it’s official – Serena Williams has the WTA Year-End World No.1 Singles Ranking presented by Dubai Duty Free.

It was another phenomenal year for Williams, of course highlighted by winning her 19th, 20th and 21st Grand Slam titles at the Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon, putting her even closer to Steffi Graf’s Open Era record of 22 Grand Slam titles and Margaret Court’s all-time record of 24.

But there was so much more, including a 53-3 win-loss record, the only losses coming to Petra Kvitova (Madrid semifinals), Belinda Bencic (Toronto semifinals) and Roberta Vinci (US Open semifinals). She now has the two best season winning percentages on the tour since 1990 (.951 in 2013, .946 in 2015).

Williams also achieved a whole new level of dominance on the WTA Rankings in the summer – for six weeks the World No.1 actually had more than twice as many ranking points as the World No.2, which had never happened before in WTA Rankings history. Maria Sharapova was No.2 for three of those weeks (July 13 to August 2) and Simona Halep the other three weeks (August 24 to September 13).

But back to the present day, and it’s all about year-end No.1 – and this is the fifth time Williams has achieved that honor, making her just the fourth player in WTA history to do it five or more times.

Here’s the full list of players to have held year-end No.1 and the years they did it:
8 – Steffi Graf (1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996)
7 – Martina Navratilova (1978, 1979, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986)
5 – Chris Evert (1975, 1976, 1977, 1980, 1981)
5 – Serena Williams (2002, 2009, 2013, 2014, 2015)
4 – Lindsay Davenport (1998, 2001, 2004, 2005)
3 – Justine Henin (2003, 2006, 2007)
3 – Martina Hingis (1997, 1999, 2000)
2 – Monica Seles (1991, 1992)
2 – Caroline Wozniacki (2010, 2011)
1 – Victoria Azarenka (2012)
1 – Jelena Jankovic (2008)

This article used insights from WTA partner SAP, a worldwide leader in enterprise software.