Iga Swiatek has joined an illustrious list of WTA legends who have previously won the Player of the Year award for at least two consecutive years.
The Polish player was recently crowned the 2023 WTA Player of the Year after another stellar season saw her reign supreme at the summit of women's tennis. It wasn't all plain sailing in 2023 as she fended off multiple challengers for the ultimate crown and briefly lost her No.1 ranking.
The WTA Player of the Year is an award reserved for the best-performing player on tour at the end of every season, and Swiatek deservedly checked this box once again. She won six titles, the most for any woman in singles last season, and finished year-end No. 1 for the second time.
The 22-year-old beat Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff, Marketa Vondrousova, Elena Rybakina, and Jessica Pegula to the award. It marks the second time she has pulled this off in her career after her groundbreaking year in 2022, where she won two major titles.
Even though she didn't quite hit the heights of 2022, Swiatek won more WTA matches last season than any other season. She also attained a hat trick of Roland Garros titles and has already been tipped to break Chris Evert's record haul of seven titles by a WTA player at the Parisian Slam.
Swiatek has become the first woman to retain the Player of the Year award since Serena Williams won a quartet between 2012 and 2015. The Warsaw native has emulated not just Williams but also Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf, Monica Seles, and Lindsay Davenport in winning this award for two years in a row.
22-time Grand Slam champion Graf is the current record holder for the year-end prize, having won it eight times, followed by Navratilova and Serena, who achieved this on seven occasions. Swiatek has equaled Davenport's and Seles's tally of two after emerging the winner in 2022 and 2023.
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