Barty defeats defending champion Svitolina to win WTA Finals, Babos & Mladenovic retain doubles title

Ashleigh Barty capped off a brilliant season to claim the WTA Finals in Shenzhen defeating defending champion Elina Svitolina in an excellent performance.

Barty who claimed a fourth title of the year as a result has underlined her status as World No.1 by claiming the crown 6-4, 6-3.

Svitolina nearly dealt the first blow in the opening set as she fashioned a break point opportunity; but this didn't work out and Barty punished. It was in the next game which saw her on the third set point claim the first; after Svitolina had battled valiantly to delay it.

Barty went 2-1 down in the second set but she responded brilliantly winning the next three games to seize the initiative again. Svitolina claimed a break back but Barty broke again in a turning point as she sealed victory from there.

Naomi Osaka and Bianca Andreescu in particular both had to withdraw from proceedings in Shenzhen but it was Barty who rose to the occasion to claim the title.

https://twitter.com/WTA/status/1190980038616707072?s=20

Brilliant Babos and Mladenovic defend WTA Finals title

Timea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic also retained their WTA Finals title securing a straight-sets win over Hsieh Su-Wei and Barbora Strycova to become the first team in 11 years to defend the title.

It was a 6-1, 6-3 domination for the team as they claimed the Martina Navratilova doubles trophy. The duo claim the biggest amount of prize money in doubles history at $1 million and become the first back-to-back champions since Cara Black and Liezel Huber in 2007-08.

After a slow start in the semi-final, Babos and Mladenovic soon diminished that dominating the opening set conceding just four points behind their deliveries with three breaks int andem.

Hsieh and Strycova broke in the second set but this was the only flicker of performance from them as Babos and Mladenovic would win three straight games from 2-2 and this lead proved to be insurmontable as Babos smashed in a love hold to seal the title.

https://twitter.com/WTA/status/1190929955808432128