THIS year was an important break-even year for 28-year-old Kiki Bertens. The Dutchwoman was able to maintain her ninth placed ranking at year’s end, having moved up into the top 10 in 2018 after previously being ranked no higher than 18 prior to that.

Rank: #9
Wins: 55
Losses: 26
Titles: 2
Prize Money: $4,208,026

Bertens added a couple more titles to her nine-strong resume, winning in St. Petersburg and Madrid, whilst making the final a further three times in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Palermo and Zhuhai. She was a late injury call-up to the WTA Finals in Shenzhen for Naomi Osaka and made an immediate impact, downing Ash Barty in three sets before having to retire against Belinda Bencic in the next match. Her Grand Slams were not overly memorable this year, bundled out in Round 2 (Australian Open and Roland Garros) and Round 3 (Wimbledon and US Open), all of which the losses came against lower ranked players. Her ability to compete on the biggest stages is an area she could further work on, but Bertens is more your consistent hitter with a high work rate.

Bertens’ best win came in Madrid where she defeated world number three Simona Halep in straight sets, which followed on from straight sets victories over top 10 players Sloane Stephens and Petra Kvitova, and 12th seed Anastasija Sevatova. Bertens’ consistency is a key feature of her game, and it showed, producing a 72.1 per cent first serve winning percentage, and capitalised on more than half of her opponents’ second serves in 2019. While there are plenty of young stars coming up chasing a top 10 spot, Bertens still has a few years left to make an impact.