The five biggest breakthroughs of the 2023 WTA season
The WTA’s 2023 season was full of pleasant surprises, dazzling debuts and stamps of authority. Join us as we run down five of the biggest breakthroughs.
Mirra Andreeva through to last 16 on her Wimbledon debut in 2023 Action Plus / Panoramic
The 2023 WTA season is in the books, ending with a crowning achievement from once again world No 1 Iga Swiatek, who stormed to the title at the WTA Finals in Cancun, dropping a mere 20 games in the process.
Swiatek finishes the season at No 1 for the second consecutive season, but the Polish juggernaut wasn’t the only one making big waves over the course of the 11-month trek that took us from Australian to Cancun via the whole wide world.
Join us for a look back at five massive breakthroughs that moved the needle in 2023, and significantly changed the WTA landscape ahead of 2024.
Aryna arrives
When 2023 commenced Aryna Sabalenka was largely considered to be an underachiever and a hard-luck loser. Her serve was a wild beast that she couldn’t seem to tame across the 2022 season. Her last three Grand Slam semi-finals had gone horribly and left her devastated. But still, there was some sense of pride and determination that radiated from the Belarusian powerhouse: that which did not kill her would only make her stronger.
Sabalenka was the embodiment of that classic slogan in 2023, winning the Australian out of the gates and then spending the rest of the 2023 season tracking down Iga Swiatek and the No 1 ranking. Lo and behold, she made it to the promised land in New York, where she reached the final and finally surpassed Swiatek at the top of the ATP table two days later.
The fact that she’s slipped to No 2 again will likely only make Sabalenka more determined to continue improving next season. Watch out world.
Coco comes of age
Sabalenka might very well have won two majors in 2023 if it weren’t for the steely, cerebral teen from Florida who spent the season turning over every rock looking for ways to get better. Enter Coco Gauff, the talented, precocious, widely adored talent who has been around the tour for so long we have to pinch ourselves to remember she’s still a teenager until next March.
Like Sabalenka, Gauff had a lot of rough edges to her game to clean up in 2023, but more than enough desire and commitment to battle through her hardships and continue rising up the rankings. When Gauff finally formed a coaching team that clicked this summer, with Brad Gilbert stepping in alongside Pere Riba (let us not forget Jarmere Jenkins and Coco’s parents), the American was finally ready to realise her potential. She did just that, winning titles in DC and Cincinnati before her crowning achievement in New York.
At Flushing Meadows, Gauff won four three-setters and rallied from a set own on three occasions, including in the final against Sabalenka, to become the youngest American to win a major title since the great Serena Williams in 1999.
Talk about a breakthrough on a big stage…
Andreeva’s got next
Now that Gauff has emerged from her cocoon and taken flight as a beautiful Grand Slam winning butterfly, we turn our heads to the next next big thing. Look no further than 16-year-old Mirra Andreeva, think of her as a chrysalis – full grown but not quite ready to spread the wings.
Andreeva started her season on the junior circuit, playing – and losing – the Australian Open Girls’ final but quickly graduated to the senior circuit and made a big impact while doing so. She recorded three top 50 wins to reach the round of 16 in Madrid in what was her second tour-level event, then qualified and reached the third round at Roland-Garros (falling to Gauff in three sets) and qualified and reached the round of 16 at Wimbledon, the youngest player to achieve that feat since… Gauff!
Andreeva was outside of the top 400 this time last year but now resides at No 46 in the WTA rankings. The future does indeed look bright for the rising Russian, and she won’t turn 17 until April.
Muchova and Haddad Maia in Paris
There’s nothing like springtime in Paris. And this year in Paris, love was in the air for tennis fans who appreciate new beginnings. Karolina Muchova went on a dream run in the city of light, finally shedding her injury cloud and thriving like never before on the terre battue, where started her fortnight with a takedown of Maria Sakkari, the No 8 seed, and never looked back.
Muchova eventually edged Aryna Sabalenka in one of the matches of the year in the semi-finals and very nearly took out Iga Swiatek in a dramatic three-set final.
All the while, Muchova impressed with her elegant grace, diverse skill set, and divine athleticism. Please, please, stay healthy in 2023, Karolina.
Also on the marquee in Paris was the run of Brazil’s Beatriz Haddad Maia. We can still hear the BIA!!! BIA!!! chants ringing out from the stands in Court Suzanne-Lenglen and Philippe-Chatrier and into our ears. Fans were captivated by the physical brand of tennis that the southpaw brought to Roland-Garros as she became the first woman from Brazil to reach the Roland-Garros semi-finals since 1968.
Her round of 16 win over Sara Sorribes Tormo was epic, as was her upset of Ons Jabeur in the quarter-finals. In the semis she fought valiantly and pushed Iga Swiatek across two sets. It was truly a run to remember, and hopefully a preview of the future.
Vondrousova the Wimbledon queen
We’d be remiss if we didn’t have the trickiest southpaw on the WTA Tour on this list… we’re writing about none other than Marketa Vondrousova, the talented drop-shot enthusiast who became the first unseeded woman to ever win the Wimbledon crown this summer.
Unexpected would be an understatement regarding Vondrousova’s run at Wimbledon, but then again, everybody knew how much talent the mercurial Czech has in her tennis playing bones. It was just that those bones have proven fragile over the years, particularly the ones in her wrist, which led to multiple surgeries and kept her off tour for long stretches. Those bones also kept the quality of Vondrousova’s play – and her ranking – down. But this summer at SW19 we got a glimpse of Vondrousova in all her unflappable glory. She was icy cool and composed, unrelenting, and in her game we saw strengths that we didn’t know existed, like her flawless movement and defensive skills.
When it was all said and done, Vondrousova emerged as the biggest surprise that we should have seen coming in 2023.
Now the challenge for all of our breakthrough players in 2024: How to repeat that success, or better yet, build on it?
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