Road to the WTA Finals: Caroline Garcia

Editor’s note: From Monday to Thursday this week, we will look at the road each of the eight singles players and eight doubles took to qualify for this year’s WTA Finals in Fort Worth, Texas. 

Singles

Monday: No.1 Swiatek | No.2 Jabeur

Tuesday: No.3 Pegula | No.4 Gauff

Wednesday: No.5 Sakkari | No.6 Garcia

Thursday: No.7 Sabalenka | No.8 Kasatkina

Doubles

Monday: No.1 Krejcikova and Siniakova | No.2 Dabrowski and Olmos

Tuesday: No.3 Pegula and Gauff | No.4 Mertens and Kudermetova

Wednesday: No.5 Kichenok and Ostapenko | No.6 Xu and Yang

Thursday: No.7 Haddad Maia and Danilina  | No.8 Schuurs and Krawczyk

Season at a glance

France’s Caroline Garcia enjoyed the biggest resurgence of any player in the WTA Finals field. 

A former World No.4, Garcia made her WTA Finals debut five years ago in 2017. But the Frenchwoman struggled to maintain that form. She began he 2022 season at No.74 and was sidelined by a foot injury. When she returned to action at Roland Garros, she went on to win the doubles title with Kristina Mladenovic.

And then things really took off.

By the numbers

For most of the summer, Garcia was the winningest player on tour. She won her first title since 2019, on the grass at Bad Homburg, made her first major Round of 16 since 2020 at Wimbledon and defeated Iga Swiatek en route to the title in Warsaw. 

But Garcia went from red hot to white hot on the American hard courts. She engineered an improbable title run as a qualifier at the Western & Southern Open, her first WTA 1000 title since 2017. She parlayed that win into a 13-match win streak that took her to her first major semifinal at the US Open.

Champions Corner: Garcia casts aside her doubts to make history in Cincinnati

The key to her turnaround? Embracing full-throttle aggression, a tactic encouraged by new coach Bertrand Perret. 

“I think when I arrived on tour, I was definitely playing like that,” Garcia said during the summer. “That’s the way I learned to play tennis. You have to have a true belief in it. If not, mistakes are coming quite quickly.

“Then I doubted. Time goes and you realize it’s not working the other way, and you try to change, you try to get people around you who believe in this game style who made you move even more forward than you did in the past. I did and liked it a lot.

“Doing winners, going to the net, it’s definitely what I enjoy in tennis and what I enjoy also, how I enjoy watching people play. That’s what I like.”

Season highlights:

–Second to Iga Swiatek in titles this season, winning three
–Only player to win titles on all three surfaces this season
–Rose 68 spots in the rankings from the start of the season 
–Won her second WTA 1000 title, defeating Petra Kvitova to win Cincinnati as a qualifier
–The only player in the WTA Finals field to defeat Swiatek this season, defeating the World No.1 on clay in Warsaw.
–Made first major semifinal at US Open
–Finished the regular season ranked second in aces, hitting 369.