WTA 2023 awards: Best player, best comeback, biggest surprise, best match, best rivalry, best young player

The season has seen four different Grand Slam champions, two different world No. 1s, some great comeback stories, more than a few surprise winners, a return to China, and a couple of scheduling issues along the way.

To wrap it all up we hand out our end-of-season awards.

Before the WTA Finals this award was up for grabs.

After the WTA Finals there is surely only one winner: Iga Swiatek.

Dropping 20 games in five matches against the very best on the WTA Tour is just ridiculous, and Swiatek finishes the season as a deserving world No. 1.

Aryna Sabalenka also had a very good season, reaching the semi-finals of all four Slams and the WTA Finals.

A difficult one, with four different winners of the four Slams (Hsieh Su-wei won both the French Open and Wimbledon but with different partners).

Storm Hunter finished as year-end doubles No. 1 after making the Wimbledon final and winning two WTA 1000 events, all alongside Elise Mertens.

The nod just goes to Vera Zvonareva and Laura Siegemund, who wrapped up a very strong finish to the season by winning the WTA Finals.

The pair won four titles in total and also reached the final of the US Open.

Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula deserve a mention too, for not only continuing to play a lot of doubles despite their singles success, but being very good at it. They won two titles together in 2023, reached two Grand Slam semi-finals, and end the season at No. 3 in the doubles rankings.

Beatriz Haddad Maia has developed a (perhaps unwanted) habit of being involved in lengthy matches.

Her near-four-hour win over Sara Sorribes Tormo in the fourth round of French Open was a brilliant contest.

It featured Haddad Maia losing the first set from 5-2 up, then coming back from 3-0 down in the second set, a fake shot from Sorribes Tormo in the decider, before Haddad Maia finally won on her fourth match point.

Elina Svitolina’s back-to-back wins over Victoria Azarenka and Iga Swiatek at Wimbledon were also both thrilling matches, and Swiatek v Sabalenka in the Madrid Open final was a high-quality contest.

The ‘Big Three’ rivalry didn’t quite develop as expected after Swiatek, Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina threatened to pull away from the pack at the start of the year.

Swiatek’s match-up with Sabalenka has undoubted potential but hasn’t seriously taken off, and Rybakina v Swiatek was very one-sided, with Rybakina winning all three of their meetings in 2023.

Rybakina then beat Sabalenka in a high-class Indian Wells final and in Beijing, before Sabalenka levelled at 2-2 with victory in the group stage of the WTA Finals.

“As my mum says, you never know if it’s a good draw until you play it, so let’s see how it goes,” were wise words from Alize Cornet at the French Open.

Or Ons Jabeur joking that if she can’t win a Grand Slam herself then she will need to “go have a daughter and make her win Wimbledon”.

There was also a funny exchange after the Indian Wells final between Rybakina and Sabalenka.

Rybakina during her victory speech: “It’s the first time it actually went my way.”

Sabalenka steps forward and says into mic: “I’ll make sure it’s the last one.”

It’s got to be Aryna Sabalenka coming so close at all four Grand Slams.

What if she had closed out against Karolina Muchova from 5-2 up in the French Open semi-finals, and what if she had done the same from a set and a break up against Jabeur in the Wimbledon semis.

And even if the US Open final she was up a set against Coco Gauff.

It was a great season for Sabalenka but it could have been even better.

Another ‘what if’ moment – what if Gauff hadn’t hired Brad Gilbert after her surprise first-round Wimbledon exit against Sofia Kenin. Would she still have had the same dream summer that she did?

The two-time Grand Slam winner hasn’t played a match since late January, and instead has been teaching Zumba, seen in her 30th birthday, and got engaged. She has suggested she will be back in 2024 but has no firm comeback plans.

Wozniacki retired in January 2020 and had two children while away from tennis.

She returned at the Canadian Open and in her first match in over three-and-a-half years beat Kimberly Birrell 6-2 6-2.

She then went on to reach the last 16 of the US Open in just her third tournament back.

There are a few contenders.

Hsieh Su-wei and Barbora Strycova returning after time away from the tour to win the doubles title at Wimbledon was impressive, and so was Wozniacki looking sharp so soon after coming out of retirement.

But Elina Svitolina’s Wimbledon run tops the lot.

Every time Svitolina looked down, she fought back, earning plenty of deserving plaudits.

Former Australian Open winner Kenin also deserves a mention for returning to form after some difficult seasons.

She finishes the season as No. 3 in the world and there should be excitement about what she can achieve in 2024 beyond.

Mirra Andreeva affirmed her status as one to watch.

The 16-year-old announced herself in Madrid where she beat Leylah Fernandez and then two top-20 seeds in straight sets, before losing to eventual winner Sabalenka.

She also made the third round at the French Open and last 16 at Wimbledon, and ended the year with an impressive 36-9 win-loss record.

Linda Noskova’s best showing came right at the start of the season as she took out two of the top three seeds on her way to the final in Adelaide.

Noskova, 18, made another final in Prague, had some good wins in Cincinnati, and finishes the year at No. 41 in the rankings.