Aryna Sabalenka wins WTA Player of the Year as Anisimova, Mboko and Bencic also scoop awards

The WTA Awards have started to be confirmed with Aryna Sabalenka crowned as WTA Player of the Year once again after a standout 2025 as the imperious World No.1.

It is the second year in a row that Sabalenka has been crowned as the queen of the WTA by those voting and becomes only the third player in the past 15 years to win the award more than once.

Sabalenka earned almost 80% of the vote by the media followign a dominant season that saw her reach the most finals with nine in all. She also won the most titles picking up four as well as the most wins in 63 and set a new single season record of prize money winning $15,008,519.

Sabalenka spent the entire year as World No.1 and ended in top spot for the second consecutive year and now sits at 12th on the all time list for weeks as World No.1.

Doubles team wise, it was Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend who were awarded player of the year status. They won their second Grand Slam title together at the Australian Open winning at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships and reached the final of the US Open.

Their results saw Townsend become World No.1 in doubles for the first time in her career and became the first to top the doubles rankings also as a mother. Siniakova now sits on the all-time list for weeks as doubles No.1 and is tied with Martina Navratilova for the most finishes as the year end No.1.

In a non surprise, the rest of those winning awards were perhaps shoe-ins to do so in the form of Amanda Anisimova who despite the 80% in favour of Sabalenka was surprisingly not higher placed it seemed for the top gong given her year. She won the Most Improved and was the only player this season to be nominated in two categories and reached a total of five finals. She won her first WTA 1000 titles of her career in Doha and Beijing in addition to reaching her first Grand Slam finals at Wimbledon and the US Open. She also reached the title match at the HSBC Championships at Queen's Club and made her top 10 debut in July. She also qualified for the WTA Finals for the first time to cap off what was a remarkable year.

Comeback of the year went the way of Belinda Bencic also not a surprise in reality. She stepped away from the sport in September 2023 to become a mother and give birth to her baby girl Bella. She returned to the WTA Tour late last year in smaller events but then played the United Cup and Australian Open. She reached the Last 16 of the latter and then won the Abu Dhabi Open a mere month later defeating Elena Rybakina en route to winning the title. She went on to reach the Wimbledon semi-finals for the first time and ended the season winning her 10th career title at the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo.

Victoria Mboko was the Breakout Star of the Year. At the start of the year, she was outside the top 300 before soaring to World No.18 by the end with an epic tour debut in Miami followed by playing her first Grand Slams at Roland Garros and Wimbledon. She then sealed a fairy-tale title on home soil at the Canadian Open.

Her success saw her become the second youngest woman in the Open Era to defeat four singles Grand Slam champions in the same event. She also won the Hong Kong Tennis Open and this came after a barren run that saw her barely win a game after Canada as she regrouped and strengthened for a great end to the year. She beat the likes of Eala, Lys and Joint also to claim this award.