The 2025 WTA Tour Finals began November 1 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with the top eight singles players and doubles pairs in the world battling for supremacy and Iga Świątek and Elena Rybakina dominating the opening day.

Świątek dispatched Australian Open champion Madison Keys 6-1, 6-2 on her return to tennis from injury, while Rybakina produced a similarly ruthless performance against Amanda Anisimova in a 6-3, 6-1 win.

Four different players won Grand Slam singles titles this year, with Keys taking the Australian Open, Coco Gauff the French Open, Świątek Wimbledon and Aryna Sabalenka the U.S. Open. Sabalenka, the world No. 1, and Świątek, the world No. 2, were kept apart in the group-stage draw, with the other six players sorted into pots of two.

The four Grand Slam champions are joined by Anisimova, who this year reached two Grand Slam finals; Jessica Pegula; Jasmine Paolini and Rybakina. In a thrilling conclusion to the regular season, Rybakina overtook Mirra Andreeva at the last to clinch the eighth spot, with Andreeva and fellow Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova serving as alternates in case a player withdraws with injury. Keys, who has been rehabilitating an unspecified one, has not played since the U.S. Open.

Here’s how the groups shook out:

2025 WTA Tour Finals Groups

Steffi Graf GroupSerena Williams GroupAryna SabalenkaIga ŚwiątekCoco GauffAmanda AnisimovaJessica PegulaElena RybakinaJasmine PaoliniMadison Keys

Sabalenka faces Paolini and Gauff faces Pegula on November 2, before the round-robin moves into its second cohort of matches.

WTA Tour Finals head-to-head records

Aryna SabalenkaIga SwiatekCoco GauffAmanda AnisimovaJessica PegulaElena RybakinaMadison KeysJasmine PaoliniAryna Sabalenka5-85-64-68-38-55-25-2Iga Świątek8-511-41-16-56-45-26-1Coco Gauff6-54-111-23-41-03-33-3Amanda Anisimova6-41-12-10-30-00-02-0Jessica Pegula3-85-64-33-03-21-25-1Elena Rybakina5-84-60-10-02-33-33-3Madison Keys2-52-53-30-02-13-31-1Jasmine Paolini2-51-63-30-21-53-31-1

How does the WTA Tour Finals draw work?

The eight players who qualified were split into four pots for the draw. Pot 1 is No. 1 and No. 2, Pot 2 is No. 3 and No. 4, and so on.

These seedings follow the players’ rankings in the WTA Race, the table which only counts ranking points earned in 2025.

Each player then plays three round-robin matches. The top two players from each group contest the semifinals, with the winners meeting in the final.

Who won last year’s tournament?

Coco Gauff won the 2024 WTA Tour Finals, also in Riyadh, beating Zheng Qinwen 3-6, 6-4, 7-6(2). The current world No. 3 won four of her five matches last year, becoming the youngest champion since Maria Sharapova in 2004.

What is the prize money for the WTA Tour Finals?

The total prize money is $ 15.5 million (£11.77m). Prize money is allocated per match win, and is structured so that the singles champion will take home $ 5,235,000 if they go through the event undefeated with five wins (three round-robin wins, a semifinal win, and then victory in the final).

The winner of the final will receive $ 2.5 million, while the winner of each semifinal will receive $ 1.29 million; the prize for a round-robin match win is $ 355,000 and each player receives $ 340,000 just for appearing at the event.

The prize for the winner is larger than any of the four Grand Slams, the largest of which is the U.S. Open at $ 5 million.

Why is the event in Saudi Arabia?

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Sport and the Saudi Tennis Federation (STF) completed a three-year deal for the WTA Tour Finals in April last year. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) already sponsors the ATP and WTA world rankings, and this deal was the biggest element of the kingdom’s push into tennis before it announced an ATP Masters 1000 tournament that will start as early as 2028.

A deal for the WTA Tour Finals was close in the summer of 2023, but the WTA backed down after prominent criticism of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record and treatment of women from prominent former players including Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova. That left the WTA scrambling for a host city, eventually alighting on Cancun just two months before the event. This produced a tournament beset by bad weather and poor organization, played in front of a temporary 4,000-seat stadium on a court that players described as uneven and unpredictable. A longer term deal has the promise of stability for an event that has floundered since 2020, but has not stopped criticism of a country which criminalizes homosexuality and does not give women equal rights to men.

Former WTA chair Steve Simon last year told The Athletic that Saudi organizers are as “committed as we are to build and have good attendance for the event.”

During last year’s event in Riyadh, Simon’s replacement as chief executive Portia Archer said that the WTA Tour respects the values of the countries in which it hosts tournaments, saying she “misspoke” after initially stating that host countries need not necessarily have values that align with those of the WTA Tour.

With the contraction of the kingdom’s wider ambitions in tennis — its proposal for a combined ATP / WTA 1000 tournament and $ 1 billion of investment last year set the sport aflame — discussions over the renewal of its hosting the WTA Tour Finals will follow this year’s edition.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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