SPORTS

Sabalenka and Swiatek to battle for WTA Finals crown and year-end No. 1

The Masters tournament, held in Riyadh with Garbiñe as director, has 1,500 points at stake

he WTA Finals (November 2-9) are changing the much-criticised venue of Cancun for the King Saud University Sports Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. There will be no Spanish presence in the singles or doubles ’round robin’, but there will be in the running of the tournament, which is run by Garbine Muguruza.

Garbi, who retired from official competition last April, was present on Tuesday night at the draw for the groups. Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek, the top two seeds because that is their ranking order, lead the purple and orange groups.

Sabalenka will face Jasmine Paoline, Elena Rybakina and Qinwen Zheng while Swiatek will take on Coco Gauff, Jessica Pegula and Barbora Krejcikova.

Swiatek, the defending champion, returns to competition after missing the Asian tour and breaking off her relationship with her coach Tomasz Wiktorowski. She later announced her union with Belgian Wim Fissette. Iga has lost the world number one ranking to Sabalenka, but will fight to regain it at the WTA Finals. She has a 1,046-point deficit and there is a 1,500-point purse at stake. As far as prize money is concerned, there will be a record figure of 15 million dollars.

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