2024 WTA Finals: Coco Gauff, Jasmine Paolini and co’s qualification finally official after earlier ‘blunder’
Coco Gauff turned out to be right, in the end, as she has officially booked her spot at the 2024 WTA Finals with the WTA finally rubberstamping her qualification.
The American as well as Jasmine Paolini, Elena Rybakina and Jessica Pegula all qualified for the season-ending tournament during last week’s Wuhan Open, but players were told “not to say anything” before officials made an announcement.
Gauff, though, jumped the gun over the weekend and told the media that she had sealed her spot, saying: “I saw that I qualified on the ranking race.
“Oops, they said they didn’t announce it yet. If you look it up online, there’s a checkmark by my name. They told me not to say anything. Sorry. But it’s by my name. You can look it up.”
But the 2023 US Open winner was right all along and the WTA has now made it official.
A statement read: “The WTA announced Monday that four singles players – Coco Gauff, Elena Rybakina, Jasmine Paolini, and Jessica Pegula – have qualified for the WTA Finals Riyadh.”
The four will join world No 1 and defending champion Iga Swiatek as well as reigning Australian Open and US Open champion Aryna Sabalenka in the eight-player field. Anyone interested in betting on tennis is likely to see it as a straight fight between Swiatek and Sabalenka to be crowned champion, but Gauff and co. will be out to prove those people wrong.
There are still some places to be confirmed too. The WTA added that “only two qualifying spots [are still] open on the PIF Race to the WTA Finals” – but, unofficially, one of those places has been taken.
WTA News
2024 WTA Finals: The six women who have qualified for Riyadh as Coco Gauff and co get the nod
Reigning Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova will qualify as a Grand Slam champion as she will finish inside the top 20 of the WTA Rankings. The Czech is currently 12th in the Race and has enough points to be mathematically assured of qualification.
That left one place up for grabs with Zheng Qinwen holding a 482-point lead over Emma Navarro in the Race.
The American was due to play in WTA 500 Ningbo Open this week but withdrew, leaving her in a tight spot as she only has the WTA 500 Pan Pacific Open after this and she will have to win the tournament and hope Zheng doesn’t pick up points in Ningbo and Tokyo.
This year’s WTA Finals will be staged in Saudi Arabia for the first time with the tournament running from November 2-9 at the King Saud University Indoor Arena.
The year-end No 1 ranking will be settled at the tournament with Swiatek and Sabalenka going head-to-head for the honour.
