Women's Tennis - Season Archive 2022

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

Season Summary

The storyline of 2022 contains three major threads: the rise of Iga Swiatek, the retirement of Serena Williams and Ashleigh Barty, and the resurgence of Caroline Garcia. Iga Swiatek's rise started with a semi-final run at the Australian Open, was followed by a six-title winning streak that ran from Doha in February until the third round of Wimbledon in late June, winning the US Open in September and finishing with a semifinal at the WTA Finals in Fort Worth. In June, after winning Roland Garros, Swiatek's rating peaked at 5751, the highest rating in years, and she rose 293 points over the entire season, finishing at #1 with a lead of over 250 points.

Ashleigh Barty ended her career in March, after having won the Australian Open without dropping a set. She finished at her peak at a rating of 5649. Swiatek quickly surpassed that after she retired. Serena Williams ended her stellar career with a third round at the US Open, a performance on par with her EPL-rating (she lost one rating point there). She ended her career ranked #23 on September 25, having spent many years at #1 (almost continuously from 2012 to 2017, and on-and-off from 2018 until her last #1 ranking on January 18, 2020).

During the second half of the year, Caroline Garcia made a remarkable comeback, rising from #86 in June to #4 at the end of the season, finishing off by winning the WTA Finals. Along the way, she collected titles in Bad Homburg, Warsaw and Cincinnati, and she reached the semifinal at the US Open. Other notable performances in 2022 are the Wimbledon title by Elena Rybakina, Coco Gauff reaching the Roland Garros final, and the overall strong seasons by Ons Jabeur and Jessica Pegula, who finished the season as #3 and #2 respectively. Jabeur reached the finals of both Wimbledon and the US Open, while Pegula won the WTA-1000 tournament in Guadalajara.

Caroline Garcia was also the major riser of the season, and she was followed in that regard by Zheng Qinwen, who gained 454 points - among others by taking a set off Swiatek at Roland Garros. The third major riser of 2022 was Marie Bouzkova, who climbed from #94 at the start of the season to #23 at season's end. Her major performances were a quarterfinal run at Wimbledon, a win at Prague and a semifinal in Guadalajara.

The major disappointments of 2022, who lost the most points, were Garbiñe Muguruza (-337, #33), Anett Kontaveit (-281, #25) and Karolina Pliskova (-274, #42).

The rising stars of 2022 (top 10) were:

#	Player	Start rating	End rating	Difference
1	Garcia, Caroline	4843	5304	+461
2	Zheng Qinwen	4635	5089	+454
3	Bouzkova	4818	5144	+326
4	Swiatek	5310	5603	+293
5	Haddad Maia	4786	5062	+276
6	Niemeier	4723	4986	+263
7	Noskova	4470	4724	+254
8	Maria	4574	4827	+253
9	Marino	4604	4849	+245
10	Lys	4444	4687	+243