Leylah Fernandez barely made it! The WTA Year-End Top 8 lineup is confirmed

On October 24th Beijing time, the WTA500 Tokyo event featured the women's singles quarterfinals, with second seed Leylah Fernandez beating ninth seed Mbuco 6-3, 7-6(4) to reach the semifinals. Following Fernandez’s win, the final eight for this year’s WTA Year-End Championships women’s singles are set — Sabalenka, Swiatek, Gauff, Anisimova, Pegula, Keys, Paolini, and Fernandez.

Fernandez clinches last-minute spot in Year-End Finals

Thanks to her outstanding performances over the past two weeks in Ningbo and Tokyo, Fernandez surpassed eighth-ranked Andreyeva at the final moment, qualifying for this prestigious year-end event for the third consecutive year. After winning the Ningbo title last week, Fernandez was trailing Andreyeva by just 14 points on the champions leaderboard, meaning the final battle for qualification would be decided at this week’s Tokyo tournament. However, Andreyeva did not appear in the Tokyo draw, missing her chance to qualify for the Year-End Finals for the first time. According to Australian player Perez, Andreyeva was unable to participate in Tokyo due to visa issues; she will be the first alternate for the Finals, with Aleksandrova as the second alternate.

Gauff won the WTA Year-End Finals last year by defeating Zheng Qinwen

At last year’s WTA Year-End Finals, Gauff defeated Zheng Qinwen in the final to claim her first title at the event. Compared to last year’s top eight, only Anisimova and Keys are newcomers this year; the other six players all appeared last year. Anisimova, who won two Grand Slam runner-up finishes and a WTA 1000 title this year, is making her debut at the Finals. For Keys, this marks her return to the Year-End Championships after nine years; she previously qualified in 2016 for the event held in Singapore but did not advance beyond the round-robin stage.

(Written and edited by Wang Fei; photos courtesy of Visual China)