THE ATP Tour’s Next Gen Finals are a highly sought after event to show off the best young talent coming through the men’s competition. In past years, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Jannik Sinner have triumphed, leading them onto successful years the following seasons and beyond. As it stands, the WTA Tour does not have a Next Gen Finals tournament, so in today’s WTA Tour hypothetical, Draft Central asks the question: What would a Next Gen WTA Tour Finals look like?

If we take the same approach as the men’s with eight players aged 21-years-old or younger and play it in Italy, this looks at the top seven ranked players born in 1999 or after. Under the same rules for it to be hosted in Italy, an Italian wildcard would gain automatic entry. Looking at the names in the top eight, it would be a blockbuster event that would be highly watched with seven Top 50 players involved at its peak.

The top ranked player would be Bianca Andreescu, with the tennis world perhaps forgetting just how good last year’s US Open winner could be in such a short space of time. Injury wiped out her 2020 season, and with the COVID-19 pandemic, the Canadian talent decided to sit out the rest of the year and gear up for a big Australian summer. Whilst the Top 10 ranked talent would be the clear standout at the event, the fact she has not played all year means if this event was to go ahead later this month, she would bypass it, allowing another player to take her place as an alternative.

It is somewhat fitting that with the unavailability of the 2019 US Open winner, that the 2020 French Open winner becomes the first seed. Poland’s Iga Swiatek broke her tournament drought in the best way possible when the 19-year-old claimed the Flushing Meadows title in remarkable style. Swiatek would be favourite at the event given her title, but it is easy to forget that she actually did not play that much tennis in 2020. She finished with a 13-5 record from six tournaments, as well as three Fed Cup wins.

Elena Rybakina would be the next highest ranked talent coming through, and she has the talent to really capitalise at this event. Her 2020 season was as good as anyone else’s, finishing with a 18-6 win-loss record. She made five finals, but unfortunately only won the one title in Hobart, falling to Ekaterina Alexandrova in Shenzhen, and then Top 10 players, Kiki Bertens, Simona Halep and Elina Svitolina in St. Petersburg, Dubai and Strasboug respectively. Her start to 2020 was unbelievable and she is one to watch in 2021.

Rounding out the top four would be 2019 Roland Garros runner-up Marketa Vondrousova. The Czech talent unfortunately had a disappointing year in 2020, with a poor 8-10 record at 44.4 per cent, the worst season of her career. A semi-finals run at Rome picked up half of her wins this year, but outside of Rome, she was 4-9 including a first round exit to Swiatek at Roland Garros. She only had the one Top 40 win – against Svitolina in Rome – and otherwise had a year to forget. Next year will be a big one for the 21-year-old to see if 2019 was a fluke or if 2020 was impacted by the various world issues on Tour.

Into the bottom four, Ukraine’s Dayana Yastremska makes it in ranked inside the Top 30. Unfortunately her year was a bit up and down, not able to string more than two wins together. She had a good win over Amanda Anisimova in Rome, but did not make it past the third match in any tournament. Still only 20-years-old, Yastremska still has a big future ahead of her, but will just need to improve her consistency because she has the potential and started the Australian summer well this year.

Anisimova is the next one who qualifies, and while she also had an up-and-down year, the teenage American gets more than a pass considering the family tragedy of her father passing away in 2019 impacting her game. She managed to finish the year with a better-than-50 per cent win-loss record of 11-10, and while there was only a couple of Top 20 victories in there, a nice break off will do her good to reset and recover for 2021.

Coco Gauff the teen sensation is by far the youngest in this list and will be eligible to play at this event for the next five years if it happened. Turning 16 in March, Gauff won 10 of 18 matches in 2020, and claimed some big scalps over Ons Jabeur (twice), Naomi Osaka and Johanna Konta, whilst also having Aryna Sabalenka on the ropes at Ostrava before the Belarusian stepped up. Gauff is still young and her semi-final run at Lexington was her best effort, though third rounds at the Australian Open and Ostrava were also impressive.

Rounding out the eighth spot is the Italian wildcard in Elisabetta Cocciaretto who is the highest ranked player from the hypothetical home nation who fits the bill. The question mark is on her work outside of clay, because she is an incredibly talented clay courter, but struggles on the hard court. She only played the eight matches on the WTA Tour, breaking through for her maiden WTA Tour victory at Palermo in August where she reached the quarter finals, before going all the way to winner a Challenger event in Prague. Still raw, Cocciaretto will only build on her already impressive effort having claimed back-to-back Top 50 wins this year.

They are the top eight qualifiers for the hypothetical event, though with Andreescu more than likely to pull out, it would allow the next highest player to compete in fellow Canadian, Leylah Fernandez. A run to the Acapulco final this year saw the qualifier bolt up 64 places, and by year’s end she was in the Top 100 following a second round and third round effort at US Open and Roland Garros. Respectable losses to Top 12 players Sofia Kenin and Petra Kvitova at those events did not lose her any fans as she upset Top 40 players, Magda Linette and Polona Hercog in Paris before opting to head home and finish her year at the Grand Slam.

2020 WTA Tour Hypothetical Next Gen Finals:

Iga Swiatek
Elena Rybakina
Marketa Vondrousova
Dayana Yastremska
Amanda Anisimova
Coco Gauff
Leylah Fernandez (replacing Bianca Andreescu)
Elisabetta Cocciaretto

It would be predicted Rybakina for pure consistency would take it out, with Swiatek hoping to continue her form at Roland Garros, while Gauff would be the wildcard. Yastremska, Anisimova and especially Vondrousova just did not have the form in 2020 that would see them likely win here, whilst Fernandez and Cocciaretto are just that step down in that edge of the Top 100 rather than Top 50.

Picture: WTA Tour