THE ATP Finals event is one of the top competitions of the ATP Tour each season, featuring the top talent from across the world and playing a round robin pooled between the top eight seeds. The WTA Tour itself does not have the same style of competition to pit the top talent against each other, so Draft Central is asking the question: What would a WTA Finals event look like?

Looking at how the WTA Tour compares to the ATP Tour and there is one significant difference between the two competitions; the women’s rankings are much more fluid than the men’s, seeing players swap and change across seasons and ultimately seeing a lot of moving parts that could contribute to an intriguing WTA Finals series.

The next piece of the puzzle would involve availability and willingness to compete, with the current world number one Ash Barty currently out of action and home in Australia due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so would be unlikely to compete in the hypothetical event. The top seed status would then fall to current second ranked Romanian Simona Halep, with Japanese US Open champion Naomi Osaka coming into second and Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin slotting in at third.

Halep cuts an imposing figure coming in as the top seed, holding the longest active streak in the WTA Top 10 at 336 consecutive weeks and with three titles under her belt in 2020 would be the top prospect despite not playing since her Round of 16 exit at the Roland Garros in September-October. Halep’s experience is paramount to her success, continuously developing her game and impressing with her exceptional 23-3 win-loss ratio for the 2020 season allowing her to make a run at the WTA Finals title and be a fairly predictable front-runner.

Osaka’s excellent run of form in 2020 sees her in at second seed, finishing within the top three in the world for the second straight year. While she has only won the one title this year, she was a consistent fixture on the Tour and took out the US Open in the process, returning to the Top 5 despite hovering around the tenth mark for much of the interrupted year. Still relatively young, Osaka can be unpredictable at times which lends to her explosiveness, though can also see her falter unexpectedly. Like Halep, she has not competed since earlier in the year, with her US Open victory her most recent competition back in August-September.

Looking to Kenin in at third and it is a similar story for the American, who is an unpredictable but exciting young talent, still developing her craft and completing her maiden season within the Top 10 after finishing at fourteenth in 2019. Kenin is a force to be reckoned with when she gets going, and has won two of the three finals she made this season – two of which were Grand Slams. Kenin’s breakout performance at the Australian Open back in January catapulted her into the spotlight, and the 22-year-old has showcased a real ability to impress under pressure.

Fifth ranked Ukrainian Elina Svitolina would be next in line, with the 26-year-old more than capable of holding her own given her consistency and recent experience, coming in as one of the only players who has participated consistently since the return to court. Svitolina’s win-loss ratio for the season sits at 19-9 seeing her trail only Halep and Kenin for wins – keeping in mind Barty’s absence from the Tour and Osaka only playing the United States-based competitions – and overall she has been a constant fixture with two title wins this year.

Karolina Pliskova and Petra Kvitova take up the next two spots on the list in at fifth and sixth seeds respectively, given Bianca Andreescu‘s absence from the Tour in 2020. The two Czech talents are some of the most threatening names out there, with the former collecting a title back in early January at the Brisbane International, and the latter only making the one final in Doha, in late February, but recording an excellent 20-6 winning ratio for 2020. While not the most successful players on Tour in 2020, neither Czech talent can ever be ruled out given their explosiveness and respective aggressive work-rates.

Andreescu has successfully navigated a year away from the sport with injury and remained within the Top 10 due to the pandemic and her excellent 2019 form, and the Canadian would be an expected top performer if she did take the court. That being said, Andreescu’s lack of competitive court-time in 2020 lends to her not competing here, opening up positions to the ninth and 10th ranked players in the WTA Rankings.

Coming in for Barty and Andreescu would be the likes of Kiki Bertens and Aryna Sabalenka, with the ninth and tenth ranked WTA Tour players rounding out the playing field nicely. While Bertens has had an inconsistent year to say the least, with her lone title coming in Russia in February and dealt first round exits at both the Internazionali BNL d’Italia and Internationaux de Strasbourg, she has been fairly consistent and lucked out with the disrupted season to, like Andreescu, benefit off the extended break in the middle of the year.

For Sabalenka, her entry to the event would be especially exciting, finishing a season within the top 10 for the first time and knocking Serena Williams out of the 10 with her most recent title victories at the Ostrava Open and Upper Austria Ladies Linz in the past few weeks and seeing the 22-year-old take her 2020 title-count to three. Intriguingly, while Sabalenka would come in as the lowest seed, she comes in with the form and confidence to fly out of the blocks and be a top contender here given her consistent court-time this year with 29 wins for 10 losses.

2020 WTA Tour Hypothetical WTA Finals:

Simona Halep
Naomi Osaka
Sofia Kenin
Elina Svitolina
Karolina Pliskova
Petra Kvitova
Kiki Bertens (replacing Ash Barty)
Aryna Sabalenka (replacing Bianca Andreescu)

Suffice to say, there are plenty of exciting competitors amongst the top WTA rankings, and one could argue the way of any of the eight potential competitors to win the hypothetical WTA Finals event. As said above, one cannot argue the recent form of Sabalenka, though the winning ability through thick and thin of the likes of Halep and Kvitova is always tough to surpass. Factor in the Grand Slam winners Kenin and Osaka, and there’s a hugely versatile field which could ultimately go any way depending on the day and opponent, making for an intriguing and exciting battle if it were to go ahead.