Top 5 women's tennis players of 2018
The 2018 women's tennis season came to a conclusion at the end of October, with Elina Svitolina defeating Sloane Stephens in the final of the year-ending Championship in Singapore.
The year was filled with some power-packed performances from the players and saw some intense matches take place in all the tournaments played. There were some unexpected results along the way and a few newcomers who made it big this year.
While Caroline Wozniacki won her first Grand Slam at the Australian Open, Simona Halep too won her first Grand Slam at the French. Meanwhile, Angelique Kerber won the Wimbledon title and Japan's Naomi Osaka made history as she won the US Open.
Halep missed the last couple of months of the season due to an injury but despite that, remained the world no. 1 female tennis player at the end of the year.
In this article, we take a look at the top 5 women's players of the year:
Honourable mention
Petra Kvitova: She won a total of 5 titles this year - the most by any player on this list. However, she had an extremely poor outing at the Grand Slams. She was knocked out in the first round of the Australian Open and Wimbledon while she managed to reach only the third round at the other 2 Slams.
#5 Elina Svitolina
The 24-year-old Ukranian had the best season of her life so far. She won a total of four titles, including the year-ending championship held in Singapore.
The three other titles she won were at Brisbane, Dubai, and Rome. She performed quite well in the Australian Open and US Open, reaching the quarterfinals and Round of 16 respectively. She reached the third round in the French Open but failed to make an impact at Wimbledon, where she was knocked out in the very first round.
She was quite inconsistent towards the latter part of the year but then came back strong at the end of the season, winning all her matches at the WTA Finals.
She ended the year as the world no. 4 and will go into 2019 seeking her first Grand Slam title.