Finals WTA WTA Finals
Winner-take-all in the Serena Williams Group: Anisimova and Swiatek meet with a semifinal spot at stake
Anisimova and Swiatek face a win-or-go-home match in the Serena Williams Group at the WTA Finals. –
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.
Equipment Finals Grand Slam
Sabalenka debuts Wilson Blade v10 and reflects on pressure, regret and grief in Esquire profile
World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka debuts a Wilson Blade v10, discusses grief, regrets and lessons. Read on
Fans missing Aryna Sabalenka at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix have been met with a steady stream of new material from the world No. 1. Sabalenka unveiled her new racquet and posed for a fashion-forward Esquire cover shoot while speaking with editor-in-chief Michael Sebastian.
The Wilson advertisement for the Blade v10 carries a simple declaration: “Pressure is power,” a line that echoed Sabalenka’s 2026 run. A four-time Grand Slam champion, the 27-year-old rebounded from an Australian Open final loss to Elena Rybakina by completing the Sunshine Double, taking back-to-back titles at the BNP Paribas Open and the Miami Open. In Miami she avenged the Australian Open defeat to Rybakina in straight sets.
Asked how she might have lived her life outside tennis, she said she would be a “boxer or a model,” and in the Esquire conversation she addressed mistakes and hard lessons.
“I have a lot of regrets. I think we all do,” she told editor-in-chief Michael Sebastian. “Mistakes make us better people. It’s tough to be the person without regrets and mistakes. You better stay away from those people.”
Sabalenka also revisited a difficult moment after the Roland Garros final, when she was hesitant to immediately praise Coco Gauff following a three-set defeat. “I have to take my time after the match before I go to the press conference when I lose the match, because when you do it straightaway, you’re still that emotional person,” said Sabalenka. The two players later smoothed things over and recorded conciliatory TikToks.
Beyond on-court swings, Sabalenka spoke about personal loss. She has carried the grief of losing her father in 2019 and urged emotional honesty. “It’s important to grieve, to cry, to go through the emotions,” she said. “Never hold it inside, because it’ll destroy you from the inside.”
Billie Jean King Cup Finals ITF
U.S. eliminated from Billie Jean King Cup qualifying after 3-1 loss to Belgium
U.S. eliminated from Billie Jean King Cup qualifying after 3-1 loss to Belgium in Ostend. Shenzhen .
The United States will not compete for a place at the Billie Jean King Cup Finals after a 3-1 defeat to Belgium in Ostend. Belgium’s captain Wim Fissette watched Greet Minnen secure the tie with a straight-sets victory over Iva Jovic, completing the deciding match on Sunday.
Making her event debut, 18-year-old Iva Jovic lost twice for her nation. She was beaten by Hanne Vandewinkel, 7-6 (3), 6-3 on Friday and then fell 7-5, 6-3 to Minnen when Belgium closed out the tie.
The U.S. fell into an early deficit when McCartney Kessler was forced to retire at 3-3 against Elise Mertens because of a back injury. That retirement handed Belgium a 2-0 lead before the Americans responded on Saturday, when Caty McNally and Nicole Melichar-Martinez each won to put the team on the scoreboard.
U.S. captain Lindsay Davenport reflected on the tie afterwards. “We tried really hard all week to find our groove and to figure out how we were gonna play, how we’re gonna get three points.But Belgium played so well. They had a great crowd here,” she said.
“We just never quite got to playing our best. We got a little bit of, obviously, bad luck with McCartney. She was playing great. We felt like she had really seized momentum in that match when things started to go the other way. But we’ll keep working. It’s a process for sure.”
Italy led the other successful nations in qualifying, and September’s Billie Jean King Cup Finals will once again be staged in Shenzhen. The U.S., a record 18-time champion, will not be among the teams contesting the Finals this year.
Finals Grand Slam
Petra Kvitova welcomes twin daughters, joining a rare group of tennis parents
Kvitova joined an exclusive club of tennis parents with twins, including Mandlikova and Shriver etc.
Petra Kvitova and her husband Jiri Vanek announced that twin daughters Emma and Ella were born on March 30, making the two-time Wimbledon champion a mother of three. The arrival of the twins followed the couple’s earlier child, son Petr, who was born during the 2024 Wimbledon fortnight. Kvitova’s Instagram announcement drew more than 100,000 likes, and peers including Barbora Krejcikova, Garbiñe Muguruza and Sloane Stephens offered congratulations.
Kvitova’s twin birth comes amid a notable run of new parents on the professional tour. The draft of recent arrivals includes Garbiñe Muguruza, Ashleigh Barty, Angelique Kerber and Daria Saville, while Ons Jabeur and Caroline Garcia are expected to become first-time moms soon. The rarity of top players becoming parents of twins was underscored by comparisons to other well-known multiples in tennis, such as the Bryan brothers and the Pliskova twins, and to families of former pros who have had twins.
One of the most prominent households with two sets of twins belongs to Roger Federer and his wife Mirka. Their daughters Myla Rose and Charlene Riva were born in 2009, and sons Lenny and Leo followed in 2014. Federer reflected on winning at Wimbledon with his children present: “I looked up in the stands and saw my kids … then it started to sink in that I was a Wimbledon champion for real,” he said then, per *People* magazine .
“I saw the boys for the first time, and [seeing] them coming out to Centre Court and knowing how much Centre Court means to me, and seeing them like not knowing what’s going on. And then the girls were there too, and my wife was emotional. It just really hit me.”
Other women from past generations who are mothers to twins include Hana Mandlikova, Gigi Fernandez and Pam Shriver. Mandlikova welcomed Elizabeth and Mark in 2001; Elizabeth Mandlik has competed on the WTA Tour and reached a career-high ranking of No. 97 in 2023, while Mark Mandlik had a standout college career at the University of Oklahoma. Shriver had a son and daughter in 2005, and Fernandez had twins in 2009. Carla Suárez Navarro and partner Olga García welcomed twin daughters Noa and Ona in June 2023 after Suárez Navarro recovered from Hodgkin lymphoma.
Kvitova retired officially after last year’s US Open with 31 career titles and 634 match victories. In a brief 2025 comeback following Petr’s birth she won one of nine matches, and she suggested she was “totally ready” to step away. “Mentally, I think I can’t do it any more, as well as emotionally and physically. … You still remember how you played before, how everything was smooth and I was hitting winners and suddenly it’s not there,” she said.
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