The defending champion preserved her WTA Finals defence with a composed performance, defeating Jasmine Paolini 6-3, 6-2 to level her record in the Stefanie Graf Group at 1-1. The round-robin format, Gauff said, offers “another chance to prove yourself” if a player begins the tournament poorly, and she used Tuesday’s match to respond after a rocky start to the week.

Gauff arrived at the event having dropped her opener to Jessica Pegula in three sets, a match in which she produced 12 double faults and 45 unforced errors. Against Paolini she was far steadier: she served just three doubles, was broken once and closed the contest in one hour and 19 minutes. “I was just trying to play relaxed,” Gauff said after the victory.

The result eliminated Paolini from semifinal contention regardless of the later outcome between No. 1 seed Aryna Sabalenka and No. 5 seed Jessica Pegula. Gauff’s win also continued a reversal of recent head-to-head form. After losing her first three matches to Paolini this season, she has now won two straight meetings — first in Wuhan, and now in Riyadh. After beating Paolini in China, she won the title.

Gauff acknowledged the history of her early struggles at the year-end event. “I played a WTA Finals were I lost all three matches [in 2022], so I was determined to not make this a repeat of that. I knew that today’s win was important to keep myself in the tournament.” The victory kept her title defence alive, but it did not put qualification entirely in her hands.

She must await the conclusion of the Sabalenka-Pegula match to learn which scenarios against Sabalenka would send her through. The volatility of the round-robin phase is a defining feature of the WTA Finals and one that makes retaining the crown particularly challenging. Gauff is seeking to become just the fourth woman in the past 25 years to capture back-to-back year-end titles.

The Serena Williams Group at the WTA Finals has been narrowed to a single, decisive match: Amanda Anisimova and Iga Swiatek are both 1-1 in the round-robin, and the winner advances to the semifinals.

Monday’s action in Riyadh produced three-set comebacks by both Anisimova and Elena Rybakina. Rybakina has already clinched the group and will not be affected by her match with Madison Keys, leaving the Anisimova-Swiatek match as a straightforward win-and-in contest.

Swiatek arrived having lost to Rybakina 3-6, 6-1, 6-0, a reversal that saw her lose 15 of the last 18 games after taking the first set and accumulate 36 unforced errors in sets two and three combined. Rather than dwell on that result, the five-time WTA Finals participant and 2023 WTA Finals champion said she had no plans to “over-analyze” the defeat because “the tournament still goes on.”

“I’ll just focus on playing Amanda next, and that’s it,” she said. “Every match I play, I want to win, so I’ll just prepare and be ready.”

For Anisimova, this is her first appearance at the year-end championships. The two-time Grand Slam finalist rebounded from an opening loss to Rybakina, turning the corner against Madison Keys by winning 11 of the last 13 games after falling earlier by 6-3, 6-1. She said one of her main goals when she returned to the court was to “put up a fight today.”

That 48-hour turnaround leaves Anisimova buoyant ahead of her third meeting of the year with Swiatek. “Now it feels more like a real tournament, that you know if you win, you progress, and then if you lose, you’re out,” she said. “So yeah, [I’m] just looking forward to it, and hopefully I can give it my best shot.”

With Rybakina already through, the Serena Williams Group’s final order will be decided by this direct confrontation between Anisimova and Swiatek.

Amanda Anisimova reversed a precarious start at the WTA Finals to record a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 comeback win over Madison Keys, becoming the only player this season to have beaten all four 2025 Grand Slam women’s champions. After dropping her opening round-robin match two days earlier, Anisimova trailed Keys 6-4, 3-1 and seemed headed for a second loss in the group before winning five consecutive games to snatch the second set and shut down the match in the third.

“I feel like every time I come out here, my opponent’s playing some crazy tennis,” Anisimova said in her on-court interview. “It’s been a difficult few matches and today Maddie was playing so well, and it was quite a battle out there. I’m really happy with how I was able to turn it around in the second set, and kind of turn that frown upside down!”

The victory moved Anisimova to 1-1 in the round-robin phase and placed her one match away from securing a spot in the semifinals. More notably, it completed a sequence of wins over the four players who claimed the year’s major titles. Earlier this season Anisimova beat Aryna Sabalenka in the semifinals of Wimbledon, Iga Swiatek in the quarterfinals of the US Open and Coco Gauff in the semifinals of Beijing, and her win against Keys came in the WTA Finals round-robin.

The four champions swept the majors this year: Keys, Gauff, Swiatek and Sabalenka won the Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the US Open, respectively. With the WTA Finals the final WTA event of the season, Anisimova may remain the only player to complete that set. Elena Rybakina still has a chance; she already has wins this year against Sabalenka, Swiatek and Keys, but she is not in the same group as Gauff here and would need to beat Gauff in the semifinals or final. Jessica Pegula is only missing a win over Keys, but they are not in the same group and Keys has already been eliminated from advancing.