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WTA Finals appearances

This list shows the appearances of all participants in the women's tennis WTA Finals singles since their inception as the Virginia Slims Championships in 1972. The tournament is currently held in King Saud University Indoor Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Qualification

Eight players to compete. To qualify, players/teams have to play a minimum of eight WTA 1000 or WTA 500 tournaments during the season. Players/teams are qualified in the following sequence:

  1. Ranked top seven in the leaderboard;
  2. The highest-ranked current-year Grand Slam winning player/team ranked from eighth to twentieth;
  3. The second-highest-ranked current-year Grand Slam winning player/team ranked from eighth to twentieth, if one player/team ranked in the top seven withdraws;
  4. The next player who is ranked eighth or below.

In the singles, point totals are calculated by combining point totals from eighteen tournaments (excluding ITF and WTA 125 tournaments). Of these eighteen tournaments, a player's results from the following events are included:

Format

Unlike other events on the WTA Tour, the WTA Finals is not a straightforward single-elimination tournament. The eight players are divided into two groups of four and each play three round-robin matches against the others in their group. After the round-robin stage, the top two performers in each group advance to the semifinals in a knock-out stage. The two winners of the semifinals play a final to determine the champion. In this format, it is theoretically possible to advance to the semifinals with two round-robin losses, but no player in the history of the singles tournament has won the title after losing more than one round-robin match.

To create the groups, the eight players are seeded according to rank. The first and second seeds are placed in Group A and Group B, respectively. The remaining seeds are drawn in pairs (third and fourth, fifth and sixth, seventh and eighth); the first of the pair to be drawn goes to Group A and the other to Group B, and so on.

The format described above has been in place in 1977–1978 and from 2003 to present:

  • 1972, 1974, 1983–2002: 16-player four-round single-elimination tournament (no round robin), no byes.
  • 1973: 8-player three-round single-elimination tournament (no round robin), no byes.
  • 1975–76: 16-player one-round single-elimination tournament, the 8 winners advanced to round robin groups.
  • 1979–82: 8-player round robin groups with playoff round.
Key

<u>Current format</u>

  • W = winner;
  • F = runner-up;
  • SF = lost in semi-finals (1972–present);
  • RR = lost in Round Robin group stage (1975–1982, 2003–present);
  • A+ = Alternate (played from the beginning = qualified player withdrew before the tournament);
  • A− = Alternate (did not play from the beginning; 2003–present);
  • R = withdrew during the tournament (2003–present).

<u>Older format</u>

  • QF/PO = lost in quarter-finals or playoff round (1979–1982);
  • R16/QPO = lost in 1st round/Round of 16 (1972, 1974, 1983–2002) or qualifying playoff (1975–1976);
  • 3rd–8th = position playoffs played (1975–1978);
Note

When there are more players listed for any year, it is usually due to withdrawal by one or more players because of injury. When a player withdraws early in the tournament, his place is filled by the next-highest qualifier.

Participants are listed in order of number of appearances. When there are more than eight players listed for any year since 2003, it is usually due to withdrawal by one or more players because of injury. When a player withdraws early in the tournament, her place is filled by the next-highest qualifier.

Participants are listed in order of (1) number of appearances, (2) best result(s) (bolded years for wins, underlined years for other best results), (3) year of first appearance, and (4) alphabetical order if still tied. Active players are indicated in bold.

See also

References