The 2024 WTA Tour season was full of twists and turns, with Coco Gauff emerging victorious in the final event.
Gauff clinched the WTA Finals title, but it was Aryna Sabalenka who ended the year as number one, edging out Iga Swiatek.
Sabalenka wasn’t thinking about the rankings in Riyadh, where the Belarusian fell to Gauff in the semi-finals.
But she can still hold her head high after another hugely impressive season, with Sabalenka winning four titles.
That included two fantastic Grand Slam successes as Sabalenka won the Australian Open and US Open at the start and end of the year respectively.
Tim Henman and Laura Robson name Aryna Sabalenka as Player of the Year
And Tim Henman, Jonathan Overend and Laura Robson have unsurprisingly selected the 26-year-old as their WTA Tour Player of the Year.
“Without a doubt we all went Sabalenka,” Robson said on the Sky Sports Tennis podcast. “A standout start to the year in Australia and carried it through. US Open under her belt, year end number one.
Overend added: “For all the tournaments she has won this year for me one of the big decisions was the tournament that she didn’t play, Wimbledon. Pulling out of Wimbledon on the eve of the tournament proved to be an inspired decision because it allows her that time to recover and build for the second half of the year.
“I think it was a message to everybody that sometimes too much tennis isn’t always the answer. Sometimes you do need to step back to give your body the chance to recover.”
And Henman noted: “I think this year was always going to be so challenging for the players with the Olympics sandwiched into the summer and to try and play well in all of those events, when you think it’s Roland Garros, Wimbledon, the Olympics and the US Open.
“In hindsight I’m sure she would have been massively disappointed to miss Wimbledon but in hindsight when it got later into the year, Cincinnati she was unstoppable, we were there and in those quick conditions she was just hitting rockets everywhere and continued that form through the US Open and the rest of the year.”
Aryna Sabalenka edges out Iga Swiatek in WTA rankings
Sabalenka enjoyed a fantastic year on the court, beginning with a fine Australian Open final win over Qinwen Zheng.
She bounced back superbly from a 2023 US Open final loss, with the Belarusian then ending her majors season in equally strong fashion by beating Jessica Pegula in New York.
Titles also arrived at the Cincinnati Open and Wuhan Open, with Sabalenka having again defeated Pegula and Zheng respectively.
READ MORE: Former world number one admits she turned down the chance to become Aryna Sabalenka’s coach
Also hugely impressive was the long-term battle won by Sabalenka against Swiatek for the year-end number one spot.
The Polish star led the way for 32 weeks in an impressive season, only to lose out to her rival at the very last.
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