Reigning Aryna Sabalenka Claims Back-to-Back WTA Player of the Year Awards.
The top-ranked player Aryna Sabalenka has been voted the Women's Tennis Association player of the year for a second straight season.
The 27-year-old won four titles – the highest tally on the circuit – including successfully defending the US Open this past September against Amanda Anisimova to earn her fourth career Grand Slam singles championship.
A Season of High Performance
Across the season, Sabalenka played in a tour-best nine finals, with defeats coming against Madison Keys in the Australian Open final in January and Coco Gauff in the French Open final.
The Belarusian also won the Brisbane International early in the season, the Miami Open in March, and the Madrid Open in May. She remained the whole season as the top-ranked player, ending 2025 atop the rankings for a second successive year.
In July, she achieved the status of being the first athlete to top 12,000 WTA ranking points after Serena Williams did so nearly a decade ago.
Record-Breaking Achievements
Sabalenka ended the season with a sixty-three to twelve match record, and earned a historic £11m in tournament winnings.
She earned nearly eighty percent of the votes cast by international tennis media.
On 28 December, she is poised to compete against 2022 Wimbledon runner-up Nick Kyrgios in a high-profile mixed-gender exhibition match with the aim of "raise women's tennis to a greater prominence".
Other WTA Award Recipients
- Returning Star of the Year: Switzerland's Belinda Bencic, twenty-eight, was voted after taking 13-month break after the birth of her daughter and making her comeback to the sport at the start of this year.
- Rookie of the Year: Canadian teenager Victoria Mboko picked up the award after beginning the season ranked outside the world's top 300 and climbing to world number 18.
- Doubles Team of the Year: Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend were voted after securing their second career Grand Slam title as a pair.
- Biggest Leap of the Year: Amanda Anisimova was named after making five finals.
Last week, Carlos Alcaraz took home three honours in the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Awards, which included the season-ending top rank award, while Jannik Sinner was chosen as fans' favourite for a third time.
