She won the biggest title of her career at the WTA Finals just three years ago but is now retired from tennis

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The WTA Finals is seen as the biggest tournament for women’s tennis players outside of the Grand Slams.

This year’s tournament features two former champions in both Iga Swiatek and last year’s WTA Finals winner Coco Gauff.

Gauff and Swiatek are the last two champions of the WTA Finals, but 2022 champion Caroline Garcia is not competing in Riyadh.

Garcia won the biggest title of her career at the WTA Finals, but her career did not pan out the way that many expected after that.

Caroline Garcia: The 2022 WTA Finals champion who has already retired from tennis

Garcia had already shown how talented she was from a very young age, and had even been predicted to become world number one as a teenager by Andy Murray.

The Frenchwoman began to showcase this potential in 2017, when she reached her first Grand Slam singles quarterfinal and won back-to-back WTA 1000 tournaments in China.

As a result of these results, Garcia qualified for the WTA Finals for the first time, but she did not make it out of the round-robin stage.

Despite this, Garcia was later rewarded with a career-high ranking of world number four, but a gradual drop off in form saw her fall outside the top 70 in 2021.

With few people talking about Garcia, she had a surprising resurgence in 2022, including winning her first title in three years at the Bad Homburg Open.

This form continued after Garcia won her third career WTA 1000 title at the Cincinnati Open, before achieving her best Grand Slam singles result when reaching the US Open semifinals.

As a result of her sensational second half to the 2022 season, Garcia booked her place in the WTA Finals once again.

Competing at the year-end tournament in Fort Worth, Texas, where she would advance from her group in second place after winning two of her three matches.

Garcia would face Maria Sakkari in the semifinals, who she would beat in straight sets, putting herself just one win away from the biggest title of her career.

However, she would face a huge challenge in the final against Aryna Sabalenka, who had beaten top seed Swiatek in the semifinals.

Despite being the underdog, Garcia would beat Sabalenka in straight sets to win the WTA Finals and cap off an incredible 2022 season.

Garcia also rose back up to equal her previous best ranking of world number four, but she struggled to back this up in 2023 and was unable to win another title.

There were no signs of another resurgence, and Garcia was very open about her struggles facing pressure on tour.

These struggles continued and eventually Garcia announced that she would be retiring from tennis, playing her final tournament at the US Open this year.

Although she was unable to win another singles title after the WTA Finals, Garcia still had a very successful career that included winning 11 career singles titles and two Grand Slam doubles tournaments.

How many of the last 10 WTA Finals champions are still playing?

Garcia is not the only recent WTA Finals champion who is no longer playing in the sport, with only three of the past nine winners still active players.

Those players are the aforementioned Gauff and Swiatek, as well as 2018 champion Elina Svitolina.

Some of the players to retire since their WTA Finals victories include Serena Williams, Garbine Muguruza and Ash Barty, who shockingly retired at 25 years old in 2022.

While she is not officially retired, Caroline Wozniacki is considered an inactive player after not competing for over a year following the announcement of her pregnancy.

Williams is the last player to defend the WTA Finals singles title, having done so in 2014, and Gauff will be looking to match her compatriot this year.

However, the defending champion will have to do it the hard way after Gauff lost to Jessica Pegula in her opening round-robin match at the WTA Finals this year.