WTA 2019 season in review: Livetennis.com’s editors name their player of the season and more

Aduloju: Got to be Craig Tyzzer, who did a splendid job with Ashleigh Barty to guide the world No. 1 through a fabulous season.

Hendrie: I’m going with Craig Tyzzer. I love a coach that keeps a low-profile and that’s certainly Tyzzer to a tee. Since linking up full-time with Barty, he’s guided her from an unranked player to World No. 1 in an extremely short time-span. You’ve probably noticed how Barty always says ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ when answering questions on her success – and that’s because tennis is a team sport, with Tyzzer at the forefront working behind the scenes to ensure his charge is physically, tactically and mentally prepared to put her best foot forward before every match.

Wilks: Craig Tyzzer. Some other players whose coaches might have been contenders seem to have as much input from their parents as their official coaches, but that’s not the case with Tyzzer’s charge Barty. Like Barty, Tyzzer seems to prefer to quietly go about his business but Barty’s brilliant 2019 season has been all about the flowering of things the pair have been working on since teaming up in 2016. Attitude, tactics, scheduling priorities are all perfectly aligned in Team Barty and it’s really impressive to see.

Osaka and Gauff shared a memorable moment at the US Open (PA Images)

Aduloju: Naomi Osaka and Coco Gauff at the US Open. 

Osaka’s classy display of sportsmanship at the US Open wins this. The Japanese romped to a 6-3 6-0 victory in their third round meeting, but she and Gauff shared a beautiful moment together after the match, with the Japanese star comforting the distraught 15-year-old, before sharing some lovely words with the crowd- the most endearing moment through the 2019 season.

Hendrie: Naomi Osaka and Coco Gauff’s emotional post-match embrace and on-court interview at the U.S. Open. I can’t remember the last time a player invited the loser of the match to share the on-court interview and essentially hand the moment and spotlight to them, but Osaka showed her immense class that night when she saw Gauff tearing up during their handshake after the 15-year-old succumbed to the pressure and didn’t play anywhere near her best in their third round clash.

Wilks: Seeing Petra Kvitova’s response to reaching the Australian Open final, five years after her last Grand Slam final. For me, we cannot talk enough about Kvitova’s incredible resilience and depth of character to have come back to the very top of the game after suffering what she did at the hands of an armed burglar in the winter of 2016. The Czech is still dealing with the physical, mental and emotional fallout of that attack but she’s never lost her smile, her sense of humour, her grace as a competitor – and her competitive fire. She reminds us all: It gets better.

Aduloju:

Hendrie:

Wilks: 

Sofia Kenin turned in some memorable performances in 2019

1. Ashleigh Barty d. Kiki Bertens, 6-7(4), 6-4, 7-5, Apia International Sydney semifinals

Barty played some tremendous classics this season against both Bertens and Petra Kvitova (and the Barty-Kvitova final in Sydney was also a great match) but I’ve chosen this particular match because it was the one I remember watching and thinking, ‘OK, this is going to be Barty’s year.’ Tremendous three-set duel which went all the way to the line.

2. Sofia Kenin d. Belinda Bencic, 6-7(2), 7-6(4), 6-4, Mallorca Open final

Kenin has had an unbelievable year and this, for me, was its signature win (even more so than her upset of Serena Williams at the French Open a few weeks earlier). Saving three championship points in the second set and reducing the combustible Bencic to hitherto unplumbed depths of frustration, Kenin did to the favourite what she’s going to do to countless top-quality players over the course of her career – snatch victory out from under them by executing her game to its maximum effectiveness. Sonya Kenin is in the house.

3. Belinda Bencic d. Aryna Sabalenka, 6-4, 2-6, 7-6(7), Dubai Championships R16

Not just a brilliant clash between two players with differing game styles, both of whom I find immensely watchable, but a real ‘sliding doors’ moment when it came to the season as a whole. Had Sabalenka converted any one of those six match points she held, she might have avoided the downwards spiral that occupied much of her season right up until the Asian swing and her late revival, while Bencic’s incredible Dubai run would have been stopped in its tracks – would the Swiss player still have broken the top 10 by the year’s end?

Aduloju: This came down to a choice between Asheigh Barty and Bianca Andreescu, but I think the No. 1 player in the world deserves this recognition for a sensational season.

Hendrie: Again, can’t go past Barty. She compiled the perfect year with four titles across all surfaces, including a Grand Slam, Premier Mandatory and Year-End Championship and finished as World No. 1. And she could still yet add the Fed Cup to her trophy cabinet!

Wilks:  Ashleigh Barty. If Barty’s early career and consequent hiatus was all about too much success too fast, too young, the way the 23-year-old took care of business on and off court in 2019 spoke volumes about how prepared she was for this kind of success. Building on a solid foundation of steady improvements over the past three years, Barty prioritized her mental and physical fitness with smart scheduling, showed she’s learned to get the absolute most out of an unconventional game and above all, just won a tremendous amount of matches from January to October. When I look back over her season, I see a player who was beaten at times, but rarely lost a match she should have won and who kept her eyes firmly fixed on the big picture despite the media. To see a shy young woman growing into the role of ambassador for tennis, Australian sport and indigenous communities has also been a real joy.

Aduloju: I’ll admit- I hadn’t seen much of Karolina Muchova before Wimbledon, but I took instant interest in the young Czech during that quarter final run. She has a beautiful game- power, guile, comeptence at the forecourt- and I’m glad she went on to do good things after Wimbledon. Muchova  won her first career title in Seoul, and ended the year with a semi-final run Zhuhai, finishing inside the top-25, having being ranked 144th at the start of the season. Really looking forward to seeing how she develops in 2020.

Hendrie: I’m keen to see how Aryna Sabalenka fares. I thought she could break through and win a slam this season, but she struggled with her consistency and seemed to have an up-and-down relationship with coach Dmitry Tursunov. However, Sabalenka showed just how formidable her game is at the end of the season, and if she can find the level she plays at in China in all parts of the world, I think she can challenge for a major in 2020.

Wilks: Marketa Vondrousova. ‘Wondrousova’s run to the French Open final went a bit unremarked, perhaps because it owed slightly to a soft draw, but more likely because a breakthrough season was abruptly cut off after Wimbledon with a left wrist injury.

Before that, though, the 20-year-old left-hander had made three finals (including Roland Garros) in 2019 and was shooting upwards through the rankings, and her game, which marries plenty of power with an absolutely audacious line in drop and touch shots, marks her out as one of the WTA Tour’s most exciting players to watch for me. Come back healthy in 2020, Marketa.