Sabalenka named WTA Player of the Year

PARIS — Aryna Sabalenka has been voted the WTA Player of the Year for the first time after the Belarusian won two Grand Slam titles and secured the year-end world number one ranking, the governing body of women’s tennis said.

After successfully defending her Australian Open trophy in January, the Belarusian tennis star won the US Open crown in September for her third Grand Slam title and leapfrogged Iga Swiatek to top the world rankings a month later.

She also won tournaments in Cincinnati and Wuhan to end her 2024 campaign with four titles, Reuters reported.

International tennis media also voted for Paris Olympics gold medallists Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini as the year’s top doubles team, while American Emma Navarro was named the season’s most improved player.

Ranked 38th at the end of 2023, Navarro broke into the top 10 in September after winning her first title in Hobart and making six semi-final appearances, including at Flushing Meadows, during the season.

New Zealand’s Lulu Sun won the Newcomer of the Year award following the New Zealander’s run to the quarter-finals at Wimbledon as a qualifier, which helped her climb to 40th in the world after being ranked outside the top 200 in January.

Former world number two Spanish athlete Paula Badosa, who ended her 2023 season early due to a back problem that cast doubt about her future in the game, was named Comeback Player of the Year.

After returning to the tour this season, the Spaniard won the Washington title and also matched her best Grand Slam performance by reaching the US Open quarters to finish the year ranked 12th.

Olympic silver medalist Donna Vekic is adding 2018 WTA Coach of the Year Sascha Bajin to her team for 2025, she announced this week.

The World No.18 — who worked with fellow Croat Nikola Horvat and International Tennis Hall of Famer Pam Shriver in tandem during a resurgent last two years — teased the addition of a new coach to her team with a post to social media, where an individual was seen from the back feeding her balls on court. A subsequent post by Vekic revealed the coach to be Bajin.

Horvat had previously announced in late November that he and Vekic had mutually agreed to part ways for personal reasons.

“I am very happy that I had the opportunity to work with Donna in such an important period of her career and make a difference,” he wrote on his website.

“Even though we have decided to part ways, I believe that Donna has many great tennis moments ahead of her, and I will always be proud of her success,” he added according to wtatennis.com.

A one-time teenage prodigy, the 28-year-old Vekic reached a career-high WTA Rankings perch of No.18 this year, buoyed by a first-ever Grand Slam semifinal at Wimbledon — where she lost a record-breaking match to Jasmine Paolini.

She also upset Coco Gauff, and saved a match point en route to beating Marta Kostyuk, on her way to the gold-medal match at the Olympics, where she finished runner-up to Zheng Qinwen.

She nonetheless was the first-ever Croatian woman to reach the Olympic podium in tennis.

She also was runner-up to Diana Shnaider on grass in Bad Homburg, and reached the fourth round of the US Open.