The 2021 WTA season will start at the Abu Dhabi WTA Women’s Tennis Open, a WTA 500 tournament, from 5 to 13 January at Zeyed Sports City International Tennis Centre.
World number 4 and this year’s Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin will lead the line-up which also features number 5 Elina Svitolina, number 6 Karolina Pliskova, number 10 Aryna Sabalenka, former Roland Garros and Wimbledon champion Garbine Muguruza, former Grand Slam champions Svetlana Kuznetsova, Elena Rybakina, Marketa and Jelena Ostapenko, Coco Gauff, Belinda Bencic and this year’s Roland Garros semifinalist Nadia Podorska and two-time Grand Slam quarter finalist Ons Jabeur from Tunisia.
Sofia Kenin is the only player to reach two Grand Slam finals in 2020. She claimed her first Australian Open trophy becoming the youngest US player to win a Grand Slam women’s singles title since Serena Williams in 2002. Kenin dropped just a set en route to the final against Coco Gauff in the fourth round. The US player of Russian origin upset world number 1 and 2019 Roland Garros champion Ashleigh Barty in the semifinal before beating two-time Grand Slam champion Garbine Muguruza in the final.
After the WTA Tour resumed after the pandemic Kenin reached the fourth round at the US Open before losing to Elise Mertens. Kenin continued her successful Grand Slam season at Roland Garros, where she won four three-set matches during the first five matches before beating two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova. Kenin lost to Polish rising star Iga Swiatek in the final.
Elina Svitolina claimed two WTA titles in Monterrey and Strasbourg and reached the quarter finals at Rome Internazionali d’Italia, the tournament where she won two back-to-back editions in 2017 and 2019. The Ukrainian player won the biggest title of her career at the 2018 WTA Finals and reached two Grand Slam semifinals at Wimbledon and the US Open in 2019.
Aryna Sabalenka won three WTA titles this season in Doha, Ostrava and Linz and ended the year in the top ten of the WTA.Belinda Bencic reached the US Open semifinal and the WTA Finals semifinals and won two WTA Premier titles in Dubai and Moscow.
