Chase for the Championships: Where the ATP and WTA races stand

Elina Svitolina has become the seventh player to qualify for the Shiseido WTA Finals Shenzhen, joining Ashleigh Barty, Karolina Pliskova, Simona Halep, Bianca Andreescu, Naomi Osaka and Petra Kvitova in the eight-woman field at the season-ending event, which takes place in two weeks.

Svitolina is the defending champion at the WTA Finals, having beaten five Top 10 players in a row—including Sloane Stephens in the final—to win the event last year, when it was held in Singapore.

“The WTA Finals holds a special place in my heart since it’s where I won the biggest title of my career last year,” said Svitolina, who also played the event in 2017, falling in the round robin stage. “I’m very excited to qualify for my third WTA Finals. I’m looking forward to visiting Shenzhen for the first time.”

After a solid start to the year, reaching the quarterfinals or better at four of her first five tournaments, Svitolina hit a bit of a rough patch, losing seven of eight matches between mid-March and the end of June. But she’s had a breakthrough second half of the season, reaching her first two Grand Slam semifinals at Wimbledon, where she fell to Halep, and the US Open, where she fell to Serena Williams.

The Ukrainian was one of only two women to reach multiple Grand Slam semifinals in 2019—the other was Williams, who finished runner-up at both Wimbledon and the US Open.

“Before I reached the Wimbledon semifinals, I was very upset with my season,” Svitolina said. “I didn’t start badly, but I was like, ‘Okay, what’s going on?’ But then Wimbledon gave me that push, mentally, that told me I’m doing the right things, to just stay positive and I’ll get there. Then another semifinal.

“For the moment I think I’m playing quite solid. Of course there are some weeks that are tough, but you cannot be at the top of your game every single week. You have to accept that. You have to move forward. So I think my season has been up and down, but in the end, I’m happy where I am now.

“I’ll try everything in my power to play well and to reach my goals in the end.”

Three women—Serena Williams, Kiki Bertens and Belinda Bencic—all have a chance at the last spot in the WTA Finals field, and it all comes down to the VTB Kremlin Cup in Moscow this week.

Serena isn’t competing in Moscow, but she’s the frontrunner to qualify for Shenzhen, currently sitting at No. 8 on the Porsche Race To Shenzhen. Bertens and Bencic, currently No. 9 and No. 10 in the race, need to reach the final of the Premier-level event to pass Serena and move into the Top 8.

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There’s just one thing: Bertens and Bencic are on the same half of the draw in Moscow, so it’s only possible for one of them to make the final. If one of them makes the final, they’ll qualify—and if they meet in the semifinals, the winner will qualify. If neither of them makes the final, Serena will qualify.

Last week at the Masters 1000 in Shanghai, Stefanos Tsitsipas became the sixth man to qualify for the season-ending Nitto ATP Finals, joining the Top 5 players in the world—Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Daniil Medvedev and Dominic Thiem—in the elite eight-man field.

Alexander Zverev and Matteo Berrettini are currently No. 7 and No. 8 in the Race to London with 2,855 and 2,525 points, but with three weeks of tournaments to go, that can easily change.

The following screengrab is the Race as of last week's tournaments:

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Zverev has a 330-point cushion on Berrettini, but there are five more players within just 400 points of Berrettini: Roberto Bautista Agut, David Goffin, Fabio Fognini, Kei Nishikori and Gael Monfils. Three of those five players are playing 250-level events this week: Fognini is playing in Stockholm, while Monfils and Goffin are playing in Antwerp. Champions at 250-level events earn 250 points.

It’s also still possible that someone from outside that group catches fire and qualifies for London.

Even more points are for grabs in the two weeks after this: there are two 500-level events next week in Basel and Vienna, followed by the last Masters 1000 event of the year in Paris.

Champions at 500-level events earn 500 points; Masters 1000 champions earn 1,000 points.

Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova and Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Demi Schuurs became the last two teams to qualify for the eight-team doubles field, joining Elise Mertens and Aryna Sabalenka, Hsieh Su-Wei and Barbora Strycova, Timea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic, Gabriela Dabrowski and Xu Yifan, Chan Hao-Ching and Chan Yung-Jan and Sam Stosur and Zhang Shuai.

Krejcikova and Siniakova have been one of the strongest doubles teams on the women’s tour the last few years, winning Roland Garros and Wimbledon last year and both reaching No. 1 on the doubles rankings. They’ve won two titles this year, at Toronto and Linz.

Groenefeld and Schuurs haven’t won any titles together this year, but they’ve reached five finals, all at the Premier level or higher—including Premier 5-level finals at Rome, Toronto and Cincinnati.