It's a wrap for the 2023 WTA season following an 11-month slog that began in Australia and culminated with the year-end championships in Cancun, Mexico.
All that time, the trophies and paychecks were handed to all the winners. But it is time to honor the leaders of some key statistics this season now that the countdown is over. And one of the metrics that is critical in winning tennis matches is the serve.
France's Caroline Garcia remained unmatched in the ace count for the second consecutive season. Remarkably, she's beaten Elena Rybakina for that accolade once again and by the finest of margins. Garcia hammered an impressive 462 aces in a total of 64 matches (up by 71 aces from last year).
In second place is World No. 4 Elena Rybakina who fired 455 aces in 60 matches (up by 85 aces from last year). She may have fallen short of taking the overall prize, but the Kazakh recently broke the record for the most aces in WTA 1000 tournaments in a single year with 235 while playing at the China Open.
In third place is Aryna Sabalenka, who vaulted from sixth place (last season) by tallying 401 aces, which is a complete renaissance from her frailties at the start of 2022. Sabalenka needed the services of a specialist who helped fix it.
Before last year, Garcia had not finished in the Top 10 among the ace leaders in each of the past three seasons. But she's clearly put in the work to emerge as the player with the highest number of service winners. Two other notable names who cracked at least 300 aces are Qinwen Zheng (363) and Liudmila Samsonova (337).
Russia's Ekaterina Alexandrova will bear the unwanted accolade for recording the most double faults in 2023. Alexandrova had a season's high of 357 double faults. In fact, she had fewer aces (265) than double faults, easily taking the cake as the WTA's ultimate risk taker.
0 Comments