Aryna Sabalenka headlines 2024 WTA Award winners

December 10, 2024

Aryna Sabalenka headlines 2024 WTA Award winners

Aryna Sabalenka has been voted as the WTA ‘Player of the Year’ for the first time in her career, after finishing the year as World No.1.

Sabalenka has enjoyed her most successful season to date in 2024, collecting two Grand Slam titles (Australian Open and US Open), as well as two WTA 1000 victories (Cincinnati Open and Wuhan Open).

This has enabled the Belarusian to end the year at the top of the WTA rankings for the first time, after leapfrogging rival Iga Swiatek.

As a result, Sabalenka has been voted as the best WTA Player in 2024 by members of the international tennis media, joining previous winners including Serena Williams, Steffi Graf and Martina Navratilova.

The ‘Player of the Year’ Award is not the only honour to have been handed out, with Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini also being rewarded for their success as a doubles pair.

Paolini and Errani have collected four titles together during the 2024 season, highlighted by winning the Olympic gold medal at the Paris Olympic Games.

The Italian duo also reached the Roland Garros final, before being beaten by Coco Gauff and Katerina Siniakova.

This is the fourth time that Errani has claimed this award, having previously done so with Roberta Vinci, while Paolini takes this honour for the first time in her career.

🏅GOOOOOOOLD!!!!!!🏅
What an incredible day and match! So happy that Sara and I could bring the gold medal home to Italy! After a tough first set, we played amazingly well! Thank you all for the great support!!! Forzaaaaaaaaa Italia! 🇮🇹✨ #Gold @Olympics pic.twitter.com/pfcmT2jbQd
— Jasmine Paolini (@JasminePaolini) August 4, 2024

The nominations for ‘Comeback Player of the Year’ were stacked featuring the likes of Naomi Osaka, Emma Raducanu and Karolina Muchova.

However, it was Paula Badosa who received the most votes after overcoming a serious back injury to move within the brink of returning to the top 10.

Badosa was ranked as low as World No.140 back in May, but has since won her fourth career title in Washington D.C., to go alongside semi-final results in Cincinnati and Beijing, and a quarter-final at the US Open.

Two other players to have enjoyed significant ranking increases this year are Emma Navarro and Lulu Sun, and they have both been rewarded for that after being named ‘Most Improved Player of the Year’ and ‘Newcomer of the Year’, respectively.

Navarro broke inside the world’s top 10 after winning her first WTA title in Hobart, alongside a semi-final run at the US Open and a quarter-final finish at Wimbledon.

While Sun climbed from outside the top 200 to end the year as World No.40, after becoming the first woman from New Zealand to reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals in the Open Era, before backing it up with a run to the final in Monterrey.

From qualifier to quarter-finalist, a #Wimbledon run to remember 👏
You have so much to be proud of, Lulu! 🇳🇿 pic.twitter.com/nluC6wqDkM
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 9, 2024

Inside the baseline…

It was hard to see a real reason to give anyone but Aryna Sabalenka the award for ‘Player of the Year’, and that was highlighted by her sensational finish to the 2024 season. It was nice to see Jasmine Paolini receive an award for her doubles success, but a shame that the Italian’s singles achievements in 2024 have not been recognised, as you can only be nominated for one singles award.