2024 WTA Awards: Aryna Sabalenka named player of the year, Emma Navarro & Paula Badosa feature
The WTA has kicked off their 2024 Awards Week by announcing the winners of the five Player Awards.
The Player Award categories, which are voted for by international tennis media, are Player of the Year, Doubles Team of the Year, Most Improved Player of the Year, Newcomer of the Year and Comeback Player of the year. The five Player Awards were all introduced in 1977.
Aryna Sabalenka is the 23rd different woman, and first Belarusian, to be named the WTA Player of the Year after her outstanding campaign.
The 26-year-old ended the season as the world No 1 after winning four titles, while she was a runner-up at a further three events.
The Belarusian won the Australian Open and the US Open and secured WTA 1000 crowns in Cincinnati and Wuhan.
Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff, Jasmine Paolini and Zheng Qinwen were the other Player of the Year nominees. Sabalenka’s biggest rival, Swiatek, won the award in 2022 and 2023.
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Here are the winners of the other four awards:
Most Improved Player of the Year – Emma Navarro
Emma Navarro has been crowned as the most improved player, having started 2024 at 31st in the world and ended it at a career-high position of world No 8.
The 23-year-old American won her maiden WTA title at the Hobart International and reached six other semi-finals, including at the US Open. She also recorded three wins over players ranked in the top five.
Other nominees: Anna Kalinskaya, Danielle Collins, Diana Shnaider, Marta Kostyuk.
Newcomer of the Year – Lulu Sun
Lulu Sun’s breakthrough season saw her climb from outside the top 200 in January to a year-end ranking of 40, one below the career-high of 39 she reached in September.
The New Zealander made a stunning run to the Wimbledon quarter-finals as a qualifier, defeating Zheng Qinwen (her first top 10 win) and Emma Raducanu en route.
The 23-year-old then made it to her maiden final at the WTA 500 event in Monterrey in August, losing to Linda Noskova.
Other nominees: Erika Andreeva, Rebecca Sramkova, Zeynep Sonmez, Sonay Kartal.
Comeback Player of the Year – Paula Badosa
Paula Badosa ended her 2023 season after Wimbledon due to a stress fracture in her back and she was ranked as low as 140th in the WTA Rankings in May after a difficult start to 2024. The Spaniard had a remarkable resurgence to end the season as the world No 12.
The former world No 2 found form during the grass-court season, reaching the quarter-finals in Bad Homburg and the last 16 at Wimbledon.
The 27-year-old then won 21 of her final 27 matches in a superb streak on hard courts after Wimbledon.
This run started with Badosa winning the WTA 500 event in Washington in August, and she also reached semi-finals in Cincinnati, Beijing and Ningbo, as well as the US Open quarter-finals.
Other nominees: Naomi Osaka, Karolina Muchova, Amanda Anisimova, Emma Raducanu.
Doubles Team of the Year – Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini
Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini, who sit ninth and 10th in the WTA doubles rankings, have been recognised as the best doubles team of 2024.
The Italian pair won WTA 1000 titles in Rome and Beijing, won the gold medal at the Paris Olympics, reached the French Open final and qualified for the WTA Finals. They also won the WTA 500 event in Linz.
Other nominees: Gabriela Dabrowski/Erin Routliffe, Katerina Siniakova/Taylor Townsend, Lyudmyla Kichenok/Jelena Ostapenko, Hsieh Su-Wei/Elise Mertens, Anna Danilina/Irina Khromacheva.
