Swiatek, Sabalenka, & co: The 9 best WTA Tour players of 2024 – ranked!
After a dramatic and entertaining 11 months, the 2024 WTA Tour season came to a close following the conclusion of the WTA Finals.
The year saw three different women win Grand Slam titles, alongside some surprise finalists, some breakthrough stars – and a few shocks along the way.
With the dust beginning to settle and all eyes slowly switching towards 2025, we rank our nine best WTA players of the 2024 season.
To judge this, we’re factoring in the WTA Rankings, alongside the number of titles won, consistency, and the significance of titles won.
9) Emma Navarro
One of the breakthrough stars of 2024, world No 8 Navarro will start 2025 inside the top 10 after consistently rising the rankings over the past 11 months.
The US star began her season by winning her first WTA Tour title in Hobart and continued to impress throughout the rest of the campaign.
With a win over Aryna Sabalenka in Indian Wells and two Slam victories over Coco Gauff, she proved she can mix it in with the best in the world.
And, having reached the last eight at Wimbledon and last four of the US Open, she may have set herself up for more deep major runs in the future.
8) Barbora Krejcikova
It was a strange year for former world No 2 Krejcikova, who struggled with injury across a significant chunk of the season.
However, a stunning run to the Wimbledon title – beating four Grand Slam finalists in a row to triumph – was one of the standout stories of the season.
The Czech’s impressive WTA Finals display was a further reminder of how good she can be when she is on, and she deserves a place on our countdown.
Krejcikova may have struggled outside of SW19, but that two-week spell seals her spot as one of 2024’s biggest stars.
7) Jessica Pegula
Pegula is another who had a strangely inconsistent year due to injuries – but still produced some of the best results of her career.
The US star finally broke through at a Slam with her run to the US Open final, which came off the back of a run to the Canadian Open title and Cincinnati final.
That was not the only significant run for the 30-year-old across the summer, having also lifted the Berlin Open title on grass back in June.
Pegula struggled elsewhere in 2024 but her summer form was enough to extend her status as a top-10 mainstay.
6) Elena Rybakina
2024 may ultimately go down as a ‘what if?’ season for Rybakina, who started the season with a hugely impressive first six to seven months.
The Kazakh won WTA 500 titles in Brisbane, Abu Dhabi, and Stuttgart – beating the likes of Sabalenka and Swiatek across those tournaments, also reaching finals in Doha and Miami.
Rybakina was also a semi-finalist at Wimbledon and quarter-finalist at the French Open, though was stunned early in Melbourne and withdrew from the second round of the US Open.
Injury and illnesses disrupted a significant of her season, though her ranking of world No 6 demonstrates how good she still was when fully fit.
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5) Jasmine Paolini
No one surprised the tennis world more than Paolini in 2024, with the Italian finishing the season fourth in the WTA Rankings after starting the year down in 30th.
The 28-year-old had won just four Grand Slam matches before this season but found herself in the French Open final, and then in the Wimbledon final just a few weeks later.
Paolini made the second week of all four majors in 2024 – one of just two players to do so – and cemented her rise up the rankings by winning her first WTA 1000 title in Dubai.
Undoubtedly the most-improved WTA player of 2024, the Italian was a true star this year.
4) Zheng Qinwen
Picking between Qinwen and Paolini for fourth on our countdown was tough, but the Chinese’s dominance across the second half of 2024 swung it in her favour.
Qinwen’s year started with an impressive run to a first Grand Slam final in Australia, though initially she struggled to back that up.
However, her reset post-Wimbledon was extraordinary, highlighted by her Olympic triumph and run to the final of the WTA Finals.
With titles in Tokyo and Palermo, a final in Wuhan, and US Open quarter-final to her name, the 22-year-old cemented her spot as an elite WTA force.
3) Coco Gauff
Gauff’s ‘rough’ season ultimately ends with her finishing 2024 as the world No 3, after winning three titles – two of them among the biggest on tour.
The US star capped off her year with a stunning triumph at the WTA Finals – beating both Sabalenka and Swiatek on her way to victory – weeks after winning a second WTA 1000 title in Beijing.
She also won the WTA 250 in Auckland at the beginning of 2024 and reached two Grand Slam semi-finals at the Australian and French Opens.
Round 4 losses at Wimbledon and the US Open no longer seem as disappointing as they initially felt; there was no second Grand Slam singles title, but this was still an impressive year.
2) Iga Swiatek
Swiatek’s position towards the very top of the WTA Tour remained largely unchallenged in 2024, even if she was knocked off world No 1 towards the tail-end of the season.
The highlight of her year was undoubtedly her fourth Roland Garros triumph, completing a dominant clay season which also saw her triumph in Madrid and Rome.
However, it was not just on clay she found success, with a third Doha title and second Indian Wells title falling her way in the first half of the year.
A big Slam run outside of Paris eluded her, but she still proved she was comfortably ahead of most of the WTA Tour.
1) Aryna Sabalenka
Year-end No 1 Sabalenka defied a difficult middle patch of the season to produce the greatest year of her career – and secure her status as the world’s best tennis player.
The Belarusian started 2024 with a dominant Australian Open title defence and made the finals in both Madrid and Rome across the spring.
Her season looked derailed after her Wimbledon withdrawal heartbreak, but she bounced back to dominate in Cincinnati, before winning her third major title in New York.
A run to a third Wuhan title capped off a remarkable season for the 26-year-old, and she is fully deserving of the No 1 spot in our ranking.
