Women's Tennis - Season Archive 2019

The season archive consists of a short summary, an overview of news items and a list of rankings.

Season Summary

During the 2019 season, the number one ranking position was contested by three players: Ashleigh Barty, Simona Halep and Serena Williams. Early in the year, Williams was ahead, despite an early charge by Australian Open winner Naomi Osaka. Osaka appeared to be too inconsistent to reach all the way to the top. Barty took over the EPL #1 spot when she won Miami at the end of March. A bad loss against a resurgent Kristina Mladenovic in Rome made her drop back to #2 behind Halep, but Barty regained the #1 spot by winning her first Grand Slam at Roland Garros. Halep won Wimbledon in an excellent final against Serena Williams, reclaiming the #1 position from Barty. When Halep's level dropped during the American hard court season, she again lost her prime position to Barty. And at the US Open, Serena Williams made her second Grand Slam final of the year, thereby reclaiming her #1 position, which she could then hold by not playing any more matches due to injury.

The main story of the year, however, was the surge up the rankings by young Canadian Bianca Andreescu, who started the year ranked #140. Andreescu's run started with a final in Auckland, picked up steam by a victory in Newport Beach, led to a surprise victory in Indian Wells, another major victory in Toronto and finally a Grand Slam victory at the US Open, where she beat Serena Williams in the final. Andreescu finished her year at #4 in the EPL-rankings, with a rating gain of 659 points. Second in the progress ranking came Karolina Muchova, who accumulated 459 rating points for a rise to #22 in the rankings (having started at #132). Generally Muchova's season can be described as a steady rise up the rankings, with a quarterfinal run at Wimbledon, a final in Prague and a maiden title in Seoul as her major highlights. The third major riser of the season was Veronika Kudermetova, whose ascendancy started with a run through qualifying at the Australian Open, followed by a victory at the WTA-125K tournament in Guadalajara and a third round at Roland Garros, and making a few semifinals during the rest of the season. Kudermetova's rating gain was 381 points, finishing the year at #55 in the EPL-ranking.

For Caroline Garcia, 2019 was a year of regress, with a rating drop of 378 points and a season's end ranking of #73, having started the year inside the Top 20. The only other player losing more than 300 points over the season was Daria Gavrilova, who forfeited 343 points for a drop to #123 in the ranking.

The rising stars of 2019 (top 10) were:

#	Player	Start rating	End rating	Difference
1	Andreescu	4719	5378	+659
2	Muchova	4734	5193	+459
3	Kudermetova	4611	4992	+381
4	Swiatek	4559	4926	+367
5	Kenin	4948	5289	+341
6	Tig	4272	4603	+331
7	McNally	4334	4662	+328
8	Vondrousova	5005	5296	+291
9	Gauff	4578	4860	+282
10	Bouzkova	4641	4896	+255