Some of the biggest names in women’s tennis would end up sitting out much of 2017.
Serena Williams did not play after the Australian Open as she expected her first child this autumn. Meanwhile, Victoria Azarenka returned from maternity leave for a brief grass sojourn, but became the victim of a custody battle over her son, and played no more part in the season.
Maria Sharapova made a highly-anticipated return from a drug ban in Stuttgart, but would subsequently play only four more matches until the US Open series began in Stanford through a combination of injury and failures to get main-draw wild cards into Roland Garros and Wimbledon. Four more tournaments, ending with a first-round loss in Moscow, saw here season out.
Sloane Stephens returned at Wimbledon from almost a year’s absence, made two first-round losses, but then made up for lost time with a triumphant surge through North America. She went out on a high in the Fed Cup final—but more of Stephens later.
Petra Kvitova made a brave return at Roland Garros as she continued to recover from the stabbing of her racket hand last December, and then won the Birmingham Premier a fortnight later. Progress was slow thereafter, until a fine run at the US Open and in Beijing. More of Kvitova later, too.
Dominika Cibulkova and Agnieszka Radwanska, both consistent and popular presences through the calendar, had assorted injury problems that saw each manage only one runner-up finish in 2017 and no better than the fourth round in any Major, Premier Mandatory or Premier 5.
However, 2017 became a year to relish in so many ways.
The Majors were shared between four different women ranging in age from just two days past 20—Jelena Ostapenko at Roland Garros—to 35—Serena Williams in Australia.
Williams would not play another match in 2017 after announcing that she was newly pregnant during her run to the title in Melbourne—a run during which she not only did not lose a set but did not even face a tie-break. It also took her ahead of Steffi Graf’s Open record to 23 Majors, and as the tour heads into 2018 and her promised return, it offers her the prospect of overtaking Margaret Court’s all-time 24 Majors.
But Williams was just one half of a remarkable family story in Australia. With her elder sister Venus on the other side of the net in the title match, they would combine to make this the oldest Major final in the Open era, almost 72 years between them.
By the end of 2016, Serena had equalled Graf in another record, 186 weeks at No1, but the story in 2017 was one of constant change. Since the Australian Open, no single woman has reached doubles figures at the top. Serena reclaimed the No1 ranking from Angelique Kerber at the end of January, and the top spot subsequently changed hands six more times in a storyline that featured, above all others, Simona Halep.
Variety is the spice of life—and women’s tennis in 2017
But it was not only in Majors that fresh names flourished. The elite tier, the four Premier Mandatories of the WTA tour, produced new champions young and old, while the next Premier 5 tier produced debutante winners at that level, too—and check out the spread of nationalities.
2017 Majors:
Australian Open: Serena Williams (USA), age 36
French Open: Jelena Ostapenko (Latvia), age 20, and unseeded
Wimbledon: Garbiñe Muguruza (Spain), age 24
US Open: Sloane Stephens (USA), age 24, and unseeded
2017 Premier Mandatories (PM)
Indian Wells: Elena Vesnina (Russia), age 31, won first ever PM or P5 title
Miami: Johanna Konta (GB), age 26, won first ever PM or P5 title
Madrid: Simona Halep (Romania), age 26, won only PM or P5 title this year
Beijing: Caroline Garcia (France), age 24, and unseeded, won first PM title
Premier 5 (P5)
Dubai, Rome, and Toronto: Elina Svitolina (Ukraine), age 23, won first PM or P5 titles
Cincinnati: Garbiñe Muguruza (Spain), age 24, won first PM or P5 title
Wuhan: Caroline Garcia (France), age 24, and unseeded, won first P5 title
WTA Finals, Singapore
Caroline Wozniacki (Denmark), age 27, had not won a PM or P5 in almost seven years
But what were the favourite moments of this correspondent throughout the season? Just as with the men’s 2017 review, countless contenders for stand-out moments have been filtered by first-hand experience—those that were watched courtside.
Yes, that excludes remarkable Serena in Australia, Garcia’s superb Asian surge and Wozniacki’s end-of-year triumph. But it begins brightly, and in chronological order, in Dubai.
Svitolina arrives at the top table in Dubai
Elina Svitolina may not have leapt off the page as a likely Dubai Duty Free champion when the draw of 56 women was made. After all, the 22-year-old Ukrainian was ranked No13 and all her titles thus far had come from International events. Premiers were a step up, especially at the Premier 5 level now played in Dubai.
However, already in 2017, she had shown fine form by winning in Taipei and making the semis in Brisbane, where she scored a big win over Kerber. As if to prove this was no flash in the pan, she beat Dubai’s top seed Kerber again in the semis, and last summer, at the Rio Olympics, she had beaten Serena Williams.
Altogether Svitolina had scored 11 wins over top-10 opponents, and with a couple of Fed Cup wins slotted in after Taipei, she was on an 11-match winning streak when she faced Wozniacki in a rain-delayed final.
In my own words
Appropriately it was a winning backhand into the corner that won the match, 6-4, 6-2, for the young Svitolina’s first Premier title. It was all the more pleasing, she said afterwards, because the woman who had been her coaching consultant since last year, Justine Henin, won here four times, and had messaged her after yesterday’s win.
Svitolina could not stop smiling, the serious on-court demeanour evaporated into bubbling pleasure. She was, she grinned, now in the top 10 and that had added to the pressure: “When I was warming up, they added even more pressure because they announced it. It didn’t help!”
She is now on a 12-match winning streak, and don’t be surprised if that grows in Indian Wells: Svitolina’s star is most definitely on the rise.
In fact, it would be on clay that she again surged to titles, first Istanbul, then Rome, followed by a quarter-final finish at Roland Garros. By the end of the season, and at No6, Svitolina had won a tour-leading five titles and become the first player to win three Premier 5 titles in a single season.
Simona Halep and her year-long battle for No1
It was a slow and difficult start to 2017 for Halep, who as No4 in the world, lost her opening match at the Australian Open amid concerns about a knee injury. But by late spring, the popular Romanian was finding her feet again, and on the clay of Madrid, now ranked No8, she went in pursuit of back-to-back titles in the Spanish capital.
She did not have an easy time of it, surviving a final-set tie-break against Roberta Vinci, taking three sets to beat Sam Stosur, and finally defeating Kiki Mladenovic in a compelling three-set final that showcased blistering pace from power-pack Halep and some attacking shot-making, creative slice and drop shots from the French woman.
In my own words
Mladenovic had, it seemed, made the tactical decision to go for her shots and keep things short, and she managed to take the defending champion to a tie-break. There, she produced one of the sliced drop shots of the championships to bring up set point, and converted at the second attempt to level the match, roaring to the skies as she did so, 7-6(5).
However, the French woman would struggle to find much more resistance despite a sterling effort in defence. With two and three-quarter hours on the clock, Halep served out to love for an emotional victory.
Considering the constraints [back pain] under which Mladenovic was playing, she put in some fine statistics: 40 winners to 30 errors and some great numbers around the net, winning 25 out of 30. Halep’s were fewer, but then her pugnacious and quick tennis can turn defence to attack on a dime—not unlike a certain fellow finalist this weekend, Rafael Nadal. But after missing so much of the early hard-court season with injury, this must feel like milk and honey to Halep: She climbs from No8 to No4 next week.
Halep would make the final in Rome, and could claim the No1 ranking if she won at Roland Garros: Despite taking the first set against Ostapenko, she was runner-up.
Indeed, in a year that would see the top spot change hands six times before the Asian swing, Halep had to show remarkable resilience. She had another bite of the cherry in Eastbourne, but fell to Wozniacki. The odds then seemed in her favour at Wimbledon as she came within touching distance of the semis, which would have sealed the deal, only to lose 7-6, 6-7, 4-6 to Johanna Konta. And Karolina Pliskova slid into the No1 position.
Halep’s hopes were ignited again through Washington and Toronto, but her retirement in the extreme conditions of the former closed the door: She needed a final run to give her a chance come Toronto.
By Cincinnati, Halep was now one of handful who could claim the top spot, but she assured the media: “I’m not thinking anymore about it. I think the desire holds me back a little bit. I’m just trying to take it match by match, and if I am able and if I deserve the place, then for sure I will be.”
In the event, Muguruza, who beat her to the Cincinnati title, would go on to reach No1 first at the US Open, but Halep would finally have her day with a final finish in Beijing.
She remains No1 for the start of 2018, despite the challenge of half a dozen others at the WTA Finals, but the margins remain desperately fine—160 points separate the top three, with only 675 points down to Svitolina in sixth.
Roll on 2018 to watch the ranking saga unfold.
Men’s 2017 review, Federer impossible to ignore, but Dimitrov, Goffin, del Potro and more, stand tall, published in three parts: