Tennis: The grinders and ball bashers at the WTA Finals in Singapore

The WTA for its year-end finals in Singapore has four grinders in the red Group. The white group, on the other hand, comprises of four aggressive ball bashers.

The round robin groups

The red group consists of no grand slam winner, whereas the white group has three.

RED GROUP – Simona Halep, Elina Svitolina, Caroline Wozniacki, and Caroline Garcia.
WHITE GROUP – Garbiñe Muguruza, Karolina Pliskova, Venus Williams, and Jelena Ostapenko.

With as many as 1,500 points up for grabs for the winner, seven of the eight players contending here have a shot at finishing number one for the year. Caroline Garcia is the only player who is not in the running for the number one rank, whereas, with her current form which won her the two titles in China, she might cause maximum damage here. So this tournament is bound to get more interesting with each passing day.

We also have Svitolina, Garcia, and Ostapenko making their WTA finals debut here and they might not be used to its unique format, and may not be able to pose the resistance that we expect of them. The matches start on Sunday and the ones lined up for Sunday are between Pliskova and Venus, and Muguruza and Ostapenko.

karolina Pliskova v/s Venus Williams

The head-to-head record between Pliskova and Venus is 1-1, and their last encounter at the 2016 US Open went to Karolina Pliskova. Both are big hitters and servers with Pliskova being the ace leader in 2015, 2016 and probably 2017 too. Venus hasn’t played much since the US Open in September where she lost in the semifinals to Sloane Stephens in three sets. Karolina Pliskova, in the meanwhile, has had a busy Asian tour with a below average performance. Pliskova, therefore, may have a slight edge in this match.

Garbine Muguruza v/s Jelena Ostapenko

Muguruza leads Ostapenko 2-1 in their head-to-head record, but Garbine Muguruza has been playing well and would like to end 2017 as the number one player. She has already been awarded the WTA player of 2017 and capping the year off with the WTA finals trophy, and the number one rank would be the perfect end to the 2017 season for her.

Therefore with much expectations, we anxiously await the unfolding of the 2017 WTA finals in Singapore. Let the games begin.