End-of-Year Awards for Coco Gauff and More Top Women’s Tennis Stars

To cap off the year, Jon Wertheim shares how he voted in WTA’s media ballot ... and dishes out a few honors of his own.

Hey, everyone ... 

• Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf make a rare public appearance:

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• For Chris Eubanks, it’s been quite a year.

• Here’s Steven Van Zandt:

• Congrats to Sebastián Fest, whose new Nadal biography was released last week.

Onward …

• The WTA sent out its media ballots for 2023. In the interest of transparency, here’s how we voted for the first five categories, plus some additional categories and honors. We’ll do the men next week ...

WTA Player of the Year

Coco Gauff
Jessica Pegula
Elena Rybakina
Aryna Sabalenka
Iga Świątek
Markéta Vondroušová

The fallback here ought to be “respect the rankings.” Unless there is some statistical fluke or gross distortion, the MVP is the player who finishes at No. 1. This year, a different WTA player won each of the four majors—and congrats to them all—but how could you not give this award to the player atop the heap? In this case it’s Świątek, who won at Roland Garros and sealed her season by playing unflustered tennis to take the WTA Finals without dropping a set. This wasn’t her best year, but it was damn good. And a reminder that she is a generational talent.

WTA Doubles Team of the Year

Gabriela Dabrowski/Erin Routliffe
Coco Gauff/Jessica Pegula
Storm Hunter/Elise Mertens
Barbora Krejčíková/Kateřina Siniaková
Laura Siegemund/Vera Zvonareva

Some side notes: All hail Zvonareva, a 39-year-old mother who was once a top-five singles player and who has transitioned nicely. And hat tip to Krejčíková and Siniaková, seven-time major winners, who are [corporate speak] hitting the pause button or [Gwyneth Paltrow speak] consciously uncoupling in 2024. And good on Pegula and Gauff for holding top-five positions in both singles and doubles. But the winner? Again we defer to the rankings. Hunter and Mertens won no majors but are No. 1 for a reason.

WTA Most Improved Player of the Year

(Player who finished inside the top 100 and showed significant improvement throughout the season)
Katie Boulter
Jasmine Paolini
Wang Xinyu
Zheng Qinwen
Zhu Lin

This is an awfully subjective category. Though each had already reached a major final, didn’t Vondroušová and Gauff improve immensely, thus breaking through? For that matter, so did Sabalenka, who worked through an existential crisis with her serve to become a major champion. Qinwen is a wonderful player—and future top-five player—but she won more matches at majors in 2022 than in ’23. I guess the vote here goes to Boulter, who was No. 151 at Indian Wells, played a lot, won a lot and got to No. 50 this fall. (She is now No. 56.) 

WTA Newcomer of the Year

(Player who made top 100 debut and/or notable accomplishments during the season)
Mirra Andreeva
Elina Avanesyan
Linda Nosková
Diana Shnaider
Peyton Stearns

Andreeva turned heads by reaching the middle weekend at both Roland Garros and Wimbledon ... at age 16. Stearns turned in a season to rival the other 2022 NCAA singles champion, Ben Shelton. Shnaider played college tennis as she closed in on the top 50. We’ll go with Noskova, yet another Czech prospect, who won 33 matches, breached the top 40 and will play the 2024 season as a 19-year-old.

WTA Comeback Player of the Year

(Player whose ranking previously dropped due to injury or personal reasons and current season’s results helped restore ranking)
Hsieh Su-Wei
Karolína Muchová
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
Elina Svitolina
Markéta Vondroušová

We’re going off the menu here with Sofia Kenin. In 2020, she won a major, reached the finals of another and took up residence in the top five. In ’21 and ’22, she lost early and often. Amid “personal reasons” (as the category descriptor gently puts it) and injuries, she plummeted outside the top 400. Starting this year at No. 227, she regained her feistiness, beat Gauff at Wimbledon (a gem of a win in retrospect) and will be seeded come Australia. Persistence pays.

Coach of the Year

Admire the job that Brad Gilbert did—and is doing—with Gauff. But almost by definition, shouldn’t this award go to the coach of the top player? By that logic, Tomasz Wiktorowski, coach of Świątek, is your winner.

WTA Oldcomer of the Year 

A nod to Venus Williams, who is 43—more than 15 years removed from her last major—and still at it. This is burnishing, not tarnishing, a legacy. And it’s completely on brand for someone who has always given the side-eye.

Match of the Year

Aussie Open final

Sabalenka defeated Rybakina 4–6, 6–3, 6–4. Sabalenka didn’t merely win her first major. She seized it.

Weirdest Moment

If hadn’t had been for Cotton Eye Joe ... we would have been deprived of this.

Best ink

Vondroušová won Wimbledon and—following a tradition that dates back to ... 2023—announced she was getting a commemorative tattoo. And she did.

Quote of the year

Gauff’s U.S. Open semifinal was interrupted by climate activists, one of whom glued himself to the ground near his seat, necessitating a 45-minute delay. The incident stuck a crowbar in the gears of Gauff’s momentum and shrouded her prime-time match—among the biggest of her career—in awkward uncertainty. How did she respond? With this bit of maturity and revelation into her character:“

I believe in climate change. I don’t really know exactly what they were protesting. I know it was about the environment. I 100% believe in that. I think there are things we can do better. I know the tournaments are doing things to do better for the environment. Would I prefer it not happening in my match? 100%, yeah. I’m not gonna sit here and lie. But it is what it is.

Some omnibus acknowledgement of Elina Svitolina

None of the WTA categories particularly fit. Here is a veteran player who returns from maternity leave, balances tennis’s career rhythms and child-rearing with her husband (Gaël Monfils), all the while representing Ukraine, a country trying to fend off a barbarous invasion. She also played some of the best tennis of her career, going 21–12, winning a title, making noise at Majors and reentering the top 25.

Until we meet again ... 

Anett Kontaveit, CoCo Vandeweghe, Misaki Doi, Kirsten Flipkens, Maryna Zanevska, Barbora Strýcová and Garbiñe Muguruza (?)

WTA story lines and issues to follow into 2024

Can/will Gauff, winner of the most recent major, build on her success? How will returning star Naomi Osaka fare in motherhood? Can Świątek continue holding off the challengers? Can Pegula reach a final four? What will become of the fissures between so many players and the WTA? What will the WTA do to confront the mental health challenges so many players have referenced recently? Where will the WTA hold its year-end event? How will geopolitics—from the war in Gaza to Russia-Ukraine to China—impact an international enterprise?