The elite four in women’s tennis have already sealed their sought-after places at the tour’s climax, the WTA Championships in Istanbul, in just one month’s time: Serena Williams, Victoria Azarenka, Maria Sharapova and Agnieszka Radwanska.
All but Sharapova are scheduled to take part in the fourth and final Premier Mandatory—the top tier of WTA events in the calendar—in Beijing next week but only one of them is already in action in the lucrative Asian swing: Radwanska.
The popular Polish woman is one of the hardest working and most consistent women on the tour—only Williams has played more matches than her this year. She is also a strong presence whenever the tour heads to the Far East: winner of Beijing in 2011 and a finalist there in 2009, as well as a former winner at this week’s Premier in Tokyo, and a finalist last year. Arriving with the title in Seoul last week, she is already in this year’s quarters.
Yet this autumn, as in previous years, she ends the season with a heavily strapped right shoulder, and that may affect her chances in Istanbul. In four previous qualifications, she has progressed beyond the Round Robin stage only once, the semis last year.
So where are the ‘big three’?
World No1 Williams withdrew from Tokyo because of fatigue, and few would blame her after an astonishing season—indeed a remarkable 18 months.
She is currently on a 67-4 win-loss run this year, winning more titles in a single year than at any time in her career: nine. And the year is far from over. Last year, for example, she won Wimbledon, Stanford, Olympic gold and the US Open—her only loss after the French Open coming in the quarters of Cincinnati—and then returned to competition to win every match at the WTA Championships. She is, in fact, on a 115-6 run since the start of the 2012 clay court season.
She did not play the Asian swing at all last year, and it remains to be seen whether she will be fit to play in Beijing next week, but she will still be favourite to defend her Championship title 12 years after she won her first, for she has a dominant record over all her chief rivals.
Against Azarenka, the closest to her in achievements this year, Williams is 13-3, though they split their last two matches, both big three-set finals. Against Sharapova, the record is 14-2, but Sharapova’s last win came in 2004. Radwanska has yet to beat Williams in six meetings, as has the No6-ranked Sara Errani, while world No5 Na Li has managed just one win in 10, and that was back in 2008.
World No3 Sharapova, who won her only WTA Championship title almost a decade ago in 2004, reached the final in 2007 and last year, but hopes that she could challenge for the title again this year have grown slimmer with each passing month. She withdrew from Tokyo and Beijing with an on-going shoulder injury that has seen her out of competition since her first-round loss in Cincinnati. Indeed, she has played only three matches since reaching the final of the French Open in June.
She will surely not want to risk further injury to the shoulder that required surgery in 2008, though if she opts out of Istanbul, her ranking could slip below both Radwanska and Li before the Australian swing in the New Year.
Azarenka, too, has been troubled with assorted injuries this season and it is huge credit to her that she has both held on to the No2 ranking and pressed Williams so hard on the big occasions. Since winning the Australian Open, she withdrew mid-event from Dubai and Indian Wells and subsequently pulled out of Miami and Monterrey with an ankle injury. At Wimbledon, she withdrew before her second match with a knee injury and was forced out of Toronto with a back problem.
Yet when she has played, she has been in fine form, putting together a 42-5 record on the season, and she entered Tokyo as top seed. But again, the Belarusian hit health problems, and it was a lack-lustre Azarenka who lost her second-round match to Venus Williams.
This was their first meeting since Venus was hit by the debilitating Sjogren’s Syndrome, and the American’s struggles with consistency have been clear this year. Not since April has she scored back-to-back wins until faced with a fever-struck Azarenka.
The conditions in Tokyo are hot and humid, but Azarenka was clearly troubled by heat and breathing problems, and that brought about a very unusual scenario—silence from the No2 seed. Azarenka is famed for her loud ‘ooo’ with every swing of her racket, but there was not a sound as she attempted to win points with one-strike tennis.
Occasionally it worked, especially off a weak Williams second serve, but it was not enough. Williams advanced, 6-2, 6-4, in her first win over a top-two player since 2009. She was gracious in her win: “I don’t think Victoria was feeling her best. Hopefully she’ll be feeling better and ready for Beijing. Lord knows I know what it’s like not to feel great!”
Yet Williams showed she is far from a spent force by going on to beat the No13 seed, Simona Halep, from a set and a two breaks down, to reach the quarters.
Williams is way out of contention for the Championships and even for the Tournament of Champions in Sofia—ranked at 63. Halep, though, is destined for Sofia after winning four titles this year to reach a career-high 18 in the rankings. It is probably too late for her to break the top-10—the cut-off for a ticket to Istanbul—but next year may be a different story for the Romanian who turns 22 on Friday.
Azarenka, of course, is already through to Istanbul but illness at this stage of her season is a blow. She of all the Istanbul contestants is the most likely candidate to unseat Williams—and she has yet to win this title in four previous qualifications. She was finalist in 2011 and a semi-finalist last year.
But what of those still in the race?
Li is not playing in Tokyo but will be the star attraction in her home tournament of Beijing next week. She is tantalisingly close to her third successive qualification but whether she can make inroads after two round-robin exits is debatable. Much may depend on the fitness of, in particular, Sharapova and Azarenka.
Errani, the No3 seed in Tokyo, fell in her first match against the tough Svetlana Kuznetsova. After her breakthrough season last year, the petite Errani has suffered a few body-blows that have dented her confidence this year—most obviously in an emotional breakdown after losing at the US Open.
Apart from her run on clay in Palermo in July, she has won only four matches since Roland Garros, but should still have enough points to make her second Championships.
Petra Kvitova, the 2011 champion, is still in contention in Tokyo and has packed her remaining 2013 schedule, so she should be in the frame for Istanbul. But since her world-beating form in 2011, she has found titles hard to come by—just one this year in Dubai—and though she has the weapons to beat anyone at her best, it’s hard to back her for the final stages in Istanbul.
With No8 Marion Bartoli retiring from the tour in the aftermath of her Wimbledon title, Jelena Jankovic looks set to make her first return to the Championships since 2010.
The Serb won her first title in three years in Bogota and was also a finalist in Charleston where she pushed Williams to three sets. She also took Sharapova to three at Roland Garros, Azarenka to three in Cincinnati and beat Li in Rome. Even so, Jankovic she will do well to match her semi finishes of 2008 and 2009 in Istanbul… assuming the chasing pack do not catch her first.
Roberta Vinci and Sloane Stephens are both bidding for their first Championships, both lost in the second round in Tokyo but have more tournaments to gain ground.
Like Errani, Angelique Kerber reached her first Championships last year, falling in the Round Robins. She is at just 12 in the race but has just reached the quarters in Tokyo and has two more events lined up.
Also making a strong bid for her first Championships is the injury-blighted Sabine Lisicki. She has missed Tokyo with illness but is scheduled to play Beijing, Osaka and Luxembourg, but she is being chased, at No14, by the 2010 runner-up, Caroline Wozniacki, also a quarter-finalist in Tokyo and yet to play Beijing and Luxembourg.
In truth, Kerber, Lisicki and Wozniacki are significant points adrift and will need to score a big win to push them into contention. The points-rich Beijing title could do just that.
Race to Istanbul
1 Serena Williams, 11,040 (plays Beijing)
2 Victoria Azarenka, 7,670 (plays Beijing)
3 Maria Sharapova, 5,891 (no events scheduled)
4 Agnieszka Radwanska, 5,455 (plays Beijing)
5 Na Li, 4,990 (plays Beijing)
6 Sara Errani, 4,170 (plays Beijing, Moscow)
7 Petra Kvitova, 3,260 (plays Beijing, Linz, Moscow)
[8 Marion Bartoli, 3,173—retired]
9 Jelena Jankovic, 3,155 (plays Beijing, Moscow)
10 Roberta Vinci, 3,150 (plays Beijing, Moscow)
11 Sloane Stephens, 3,046 (plays Beijing, Linz, Luxembourg)
12 Angelique Kerber, 2,696 (plays Beijing, Moscow)
13 Sabine Lisicki, 2,691 (plays Beijing, Osaka, Luxembourg)
14 Caroline Wozniacki, 2,657 (plays Beijing, Luxembourg)
Road to Sofia
The fifth Tournament of Champions, launched in Bali in 2009, rewards the next tier of women who have won at least one of the 31 International tournaments but have not qualified for the WTA Championships. The six highest-ranked International titlists plus two wild cards play in the same Round Robin format in Sofia for a total purse of $750,000.
Wild Cards:
Ana Ivanovic
Tsvetana Pironkova
15 Simona Halep
17 Maria Kirilenko
24 Elena Vesnina
25 Alize Cornet
28 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
33 Daniela Hantuchova
34 Lucie Safarova
35 Magdalena Rybarikova
36 Elina Svitolina
37 Bojana Jovanovski
38 Francesca Schiavone