WTA 2022 season talking points: Bye-bye Ashleigh Barty, super Iga Swiatek, and the Emma Raducanu roller-coaster
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Updated 08/11/2022 at 12:33 GMT
The year began with Ashleigh Barty reigning supreme at the Australian Open and ended with Carolina Garcia winning the WTA Finals. Between that, however, the year was dominated by Iga Swiatek, who won the French Open and US Open and went on a 37-match winning streak. Elsewhere, Ons Jabeur was the nearly woman of Grand Slam tennis, and it’s back to the drawing board for Emma Raducanu.
US Open highlights: Swiatek battles past Jabeur to clinch third Grand Slam title in style
The year of Iga
2022 belongs to Iga Swiatek, the imperious 21-year-old Pole who ends the year as the world No. 1 after winning two Grand Slams and six more WTA titles.
She was not the obvious successor to previous No. 1 Ashleigh Barty, who we will get onto next, but Swiatek stepped out of the Australian’s shadow and then some - going on a 135-day, 37-match unbeaten streak that included six titles: Doha, Indian Wells, Miami, Stuttgart, Rome, and Roland-Garros.
The French Open title was her second major triumph, and though she went on to lose in the third round at Wimbledon, her 37-match winning run equalled Martina Hingis’ feat from 1997, making it the joint-best streak since Steffi Graf won 66 consecutive matches across 1989 and 1990.
A US Open followed for Swiatek, confirming that she can indeed conquer Grand Slams away from the red dirt of Paris, and though she was unable to cap the year off with victory at the WTA Finals – losing in the semis to Aryna Sabalenka – she will remain the player to beat next year, and her rivals know that too.
“She looks like she's covering two courts when you cover only one,” said WTA Finals winner Caroline Garcia recently.
Eurosport expert Mats Wilander, meanwhile, is backing Swiatek to go on and win at least 10 Grand Slams. Her next target will be a first Australian Open, a task made only a smidgen easier because the reigning champion will not be playing...
Don’t hold your breath on a Barty comeback
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'Let the Barty party begin!' - Watch the moment she wins Australian Open title
A year is a long time in tennis, and it is almost hard to believe that 2022 began with Barty winning her first Australian Open title, and third Grand Slam overall.
It was seemingly a statement win from Barty, the 2019 French Open and 2021 Wimbledon champion, with Wilander stating she will take the women's game to the "next level" - but by March she stunned the tennis world when announcing her retirement at just 25.
An accomplished golfer and cricketer too, the assumption was that Barty would look at taking up another sport professionally – having won a local golf tournament soon after retiring from tennis – but instead she has worked on a “Little Ash” book series for children, and is not thinking about a comeback to the sport she dominated as recently as January.
“Nope, I’m done,” she said at the launch of her autobiography ‘My Dream Time’ this week.
“You can never say never but no. No, no, no. I’m done. I miss competing and challenging myself against the best of the world but I don’t miss a lot that comes with it.”
Garcia’s remarkable return
You would have had good odds at the start of the year if predicting that world No. 74 Garcia would win the season-ending WTA Finals, and perhaps even better odds in June – as she was still the world No. 75 then.
What followed though was a remarkable turnaround in form – which she puts down to her new-found aggressive approach – and titles in Bad Homburg, Warsaw and Cincinnati all secured before her remarkable WTA Finals triumph.
“With the results coming it was obviously easier to believe in it,” she said after her 7-6(4) 6-4 victory over Aryna Sabalenka.
Garcia will therefore head to the Australian Open as one of the favourites, and after her career-best Grand Slam display at the US Open, where she reached the semi-finals, the French 29-year-old will be desperate to convert this red-hot form into Grand Slam glory.
Jabeur the Grand Slam nearly woman
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Iga Swiatek & Ons Jabeur
Image credit: Getty Images
It is perhaps fitting that Ons Jabeur finishes the year as the world No. 2, having agonisingly finished runner-up at both Wimbledon and the US Open.
The popular Tunisian never hesitated to show off her unique brand of tennis, and despite the Grand Slam near-misses it helped her win titles in both Madrid and Berlin this year.
"I think the highlight of my season is just being consistent," Jabeur told WTA Insider. "I didn't just have one or two tournaments, I was consistent.
“I was pushing myself to do better, especially with my results on clay. It's amazing, just challenging myself there and being able to do that was really, really big for me.”
She will be a challenger again in 2023. Make no mistake of that.
Back to reality for Raducanu
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'She hasn't found a coach that has lasted' - Wilander on Raducanu
After her shock 2021 US Open triumph, Emma Raducanu’s first full season on tour was a harsh, drawn out lesson that showed her just how relentless the schedule can be, and just how packed with Grand Slam champions the women’s game is.
Raducanu’s 2022 record reads 17-19 for wins and losses, with a drop down to No. 75 in the world, six months after she reached a career-high No. 10.
At just 19, brighter days are ahead, and with her Flushing Meadows win a distant memory she can now concentrate on rising back up the rankings – providing she can overcome her injury concerns and settle with one coach.
“She has not found a coach that has lasted,” said Wilander, who suggested Raducanu could look at other players to help reverse her slump, although right now she is also seeking a new coach after splitting from Dmitry Tursunov, who had said there were “red flags” he couldn’t ignore.
Raducanu has been backed to return stronger in 2023. Former British No. 1 Annabel Croft said: "She is doing her apprenticeship back to front and it will take time. To think that she has gone from 300 in the world to a Grand Slam champion and everyone wanting a piece of her and every match she plays being on a centre court. That has to be difficult."
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