Only two places are still available for Singapore – theoretically speaking.Practically speaking, this would require a strong final spurt of two players who have not hit much in recent times.
A little more than three weeks to go before the ladies in Singapore will be celebrating their last big highlight on the WTA Tour 2017: the season finale of the top eight players in the Porsche Race to Singapore.And the field of participants is becoming more and more precise: Wimbledon winner Garbine Muguruza was already qualified for the ultimate final before the start of the Asian Tour, the world’s number one in the rankings can play freely in Wuhan, at least in this respect.
As the WTA announced earlier this week, four other ladies will definitely be able to expand their travel plans for the rest of the year with Singapore as their destination: Karolina Pliskova, Simona Halep, Venus Williams and Elina Svitolina.
Williams and Svitolina have not been on tour since the US Open, in New York Venus had failed to win Sloane Stephens, and Svitolina had failed her opponent Madison Keys in the final – even though the Ukrainian had already led with a break in the decisive third set.
For Simona Halep, on the other hand, things haven’t been going well in the last few weeks: The honest and unhappy draw with first-round opponent Maria Sharapova in New York City – against which Halep has never won her career – ended the next attempt at the number one.In Wuhan, however, Daria Kasatkina was immediately out of line with Daria Kasatkina, and this in a disturbing manner: the Russian won 6-2 and 6-1.
Karolina Pliskova, on the other hand, was already in Singapore in 2016, twice as much as the Czech had qualified alongside Julia Görges.The Czech’s performances in Wuhan, where she reached the quarter-finals after a difficult opening match against Zhang Shuai with a smooth 6:2 and 6:1 against Qiang Wang, leave no doubt about Pliskova’s position as co-favorite.
Almost certainly Caroline Wozniacki will be able to compete for the last important title of the season – despite her early elimination in Wuhan against the Greek Maria Sakkari.
There are still two unresolved tickets left – for which pre-orders have already been made: On the one hand, French Open winner Jelena Ostapenko, who celebrated her second tournament victory last week in Seoul.And by Johanna Contacts: The British woman, who already won Miami this year, is just passing through a small valley of tears.However, she should still be present in Singapore – especially as the first pursuers Kristina Mladenovic and Svetlana Kuznetsova are clearly weakening during the last week.
Here is the current status of the Porsche Race to Singapore.