Dominant Sabalenka Wins Back-to-Back WTA Player of the Year Honors.
World number one Aryna Sabalenka has been voted the Women's Tennis Association player of the year for a second consecutive season.
The twenty-seven-year-old secured four titles – the highest tally on the circuit – including successfully defending the US Open in September against Amanda Anisimova to claim her fourth career Grand Slam singles championship.
A Year of High Performance
Over the course of the tour, Sabalenka competed in a tour-best nine championship matches, with defeats coming to Madison Keys in the Australian Open final at the start of the year and Coco Gauff in June's French Open final.
The Belarusian also triumphed at the Brisbane International early in the season, the Miami Open during the spring, and the Madrid Open in May. She spent the whole season as the world number one, ending 2025 atop the rankings for a second successive year.
This past summer, she became the first athlete to top 12,000 WTA ranking points since Serena Williams in 2015.
Record-Breaking Statistics
Sabalenka finished the competitive year with a 63-12 match record, and picked up a record eleven million pounds in earnings.
She received almost eighty percent of the votes cast by international tennis media.
Later this month, she is poised to compete against 2022 Wimbledon finalist Nick Kyrgios in a Battle of the Sexes-style exhibition match with the aim of "help bring women's tennis to a higher level".
Additional WTA Award Recipients
- Returning Star of the Year: Switzerland's Belinda Bencic, twenty-eight, was voted after taking a 13-month break after the birth of her daughter and making her comeback to the sport earlier this season.
- Rookie of the Year: Canadian 19-year-old Victoria Mboko received the award after starting the season ranked outside the world's top 300 and climbing to world number 18.
- Doubles Team of the Year: Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend were selected after winning their second career Grand Slam title as a pair.
- Most Improved Player of the Year: Amanda Anisimova was named after reaching five championship matches.
Last week, Carlos Alcaraz won three awards in the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Awards, including the year-end number one award, while Jannik Sinner was chosen as the fan favorite for a third consecutive time.
