Key events
Who’s No. 1?
The WTA finals aren’t exactly the tennis equivalent of the Super Bowl or the Champions League final. But this year, the No. 1 ranking happens to be at stake – for one of the finalists.
If Iga Swiatek wins, she will regain the No. 1 spot in the WTA rankings. If not, Arnya Sabalenka will retain the spot despite her loss to Swiatek in the semifinals.
Jessica Pegula cannot take the top spot, but a win here would be the biggest of the 29-year-old American’s career. She has never advanced past the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam, but she has slowly worked her way into the top five in the world and has a major opportunity today in Cancun.
Beau will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s Tumaini Carayol on a troubled tournament so far:
In the leadup to the WTA’s season finale each year, the competing players normally hope to spend their days making final preparations on the stadium court. There are, after all, countless details to fine-tune, from adapting to the speed of the court surface, to the wind and sun.
Not this time. As the eight best tennis players in the world arrived in Cancún for the WTA Finals, the stadium was still a messy building site and the hard court surface had yet to be laid. The venue is a temporary structure erected at short notice on the grounds of a luxury hotel resort and, to the displeasure of the players, it was not ready until the day before play began on Saturday morning.
“I’m not very happy that this is the first day we hit on the stadium,” said Ons Jabeur. “This is such a big event. We should have been able to be ready and hit on the court. Hopefully this will never, ever, ever happen again. Like, ever …”
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