The 2022 Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Finals are scheduled to start on Monday, October 21, in Fort Worth, Texas. Today we’re looking at the WTA Finals field and who is favored to win the WTA 2022.
Texas is hosting the tournament for the first time. Past venues have included New York City, Los Angeles, Singapore, and Shenzhen, China.
Sports betting isn’t yet legal in Texas, though the state legislature is expected to vote on it again in 2023. While Texas sports betting is still just a distant possibility, sports fans in the state can still bet while traveling in other states where mobile sports betting is legal and follow the odds for various events.
For tennis fans in other states where sports betting is legal, wagering on the tournament in Texas will be a fun way to get even more involved.
Here’s everything to know about the WTA Finals, the favorites to win, and the exciting players to watch at the season’s end.
WTA Finals Favorites
The singles field for the WTA Finals was settled on Friday, October 21, when Maria Sakkari snagged the eighth and final spot against Veronika Kudermetova in the Guadalajara Open Akron quarterfinal.
The WTA Finals is a thrilling end to the season, with the best in the world having a chance to face off and prove their mettle in both singles and doubles. Here are the top players in the WTA Finals and the favorites to win in each category.
Women’s Singles Favorite: Iga Swiatek – No. 1
Iga is the most dominant force in women’s tennis right now. She holds the No. 1 spot in the world in the WTA and recently won her first US Open, her second Roland Garros/French Open title. She won three straight WTA 1000 titles in the Qatar Total Open, Indian Wells, and Miami Open.
She’s on her 30th consecutive week at No. 1 and had a 37-match winning streak in the middle of this year.
Swiatek is the favorite to win it all at the WTA Finals and continues to seem pretty unbeatable. World No. 3 Jessica Pegula even joked that her best shot at winning a Grand Slam in 2023 would be avoiding Swiatek.
Women’s Doubles Favorites: Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova
This Czech team is looking pretty unstoppable these days. Krejcikova and Siniakova are coming off a sweep of three Grand Slam titles in 2022, including their first US Open title.
They also became the second women’s doubles team ever to complete the Career Golden Slam – the other team was Venus and Serena Williams. The rare Golden Slam achievement means winning all four Grand Slams plus the Olympic Gold during their career.
They enter the WTA Finals with a lot of confidence behind them.
All Players in the 2022 WTA Finals
The top eight singles players and top eight teams in the WTA face off in the WTA Finals every year. The 2022 field features some exciting players.
Coco Gauff is the youngest WTA Finals qualifier since Maria Sharapova in 2004. Here are the women at the top of the league.
Ons Jabeur – who has blazed a trail for Arab women in the tennis world – will be looking for another chance to make history by winning the WTA Finals this year. She’s No. 2 in the world and nearly won both Wimbledon and the US Open. Can she nail the championship this time?
Here are all the players who qualified for the 2022 WTA Finals.
WTA Finals – Singles
- No. 1: Iga ?wi?tek
- No. 2: Ons Jabeur
- No. 3: Jessica Pegula
- No. 4: Coco Gauff
- No. 5: Maria Sakkari
- No. 6: Caroline Garcia
- No. 7: Aryna Sabalenka
- No. 8: Daria Kasatkina
WTA Finals – Doubles
- No. 1: Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova
- No. 2: Gabriela Dabrowski and Giuliana Olmos
- No. 3: Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff
- No. 4: Elise Mertens and Veronika Kudermetova
- No. 5 Lyudmyla Kichenok and No. 6 Jelena Ostapenko
- No. 7: Yang Zhaoxuan and Xu Yifan
- No. 8: Demi Schuurs and Desirae Krawczyk
About the WTA Finals
The WTA Finals is the season’s last tournament, pitting the WTA’s top-ranked singles players and doubles teams against each other. The players compete for the Billie Jean King Trophy for singles and the Martina Navratilova trophy for doubles, with total prize money of $5,000,000 for the whole tournament.
The tournament was initially scheduled to take place in Shenzhen, China. But the WTA suspended all tournaments in China upon the disappearance of Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai after she accused a Chinese government official of sexual assault.
