WTA Race Update: Belinda Bencic and Linda Noskova climb as Rybakina completes Finals field for Riyadh

Following the penultimate week of competition, the WTA Race was updated – with the Pan Pacific Open and Guangzhou Open as the week's tournaments – finally confirming the 8 qualifiers for the WTA Finals. Elena Rybakina finally achieved her goal by reaching the semi-finals in Tokyo and will be present in Riyadh – her third consecutive appearance at the WTA Finals – after leaving out Mirra Andreeva, who lost her last-minute option.

Meanwhile, the Swiss Belinda Bencic climbed to No. 11 and is close to returning to the top-10, although still a good distance from Ekaterina Alexandrova, who is guaranteed to finish the season at No. 10. Also, Linda Noskova moved up positions, while the American Ann Li – champion in Guangzhou – approaches seeded positions thinking about the 2026 season and the Australian Open as the first major challenge of the year.

The names for the WTA Finals were already largely known. For months, Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek had secured their qualifications for the WTA Finals – and were joined by Madison Keys and Coco Gauff – completing the champions of the 4 Grand Slams during the year. They are joined by the 2-time Grand Slam runner-up Amanda Anisimova, the American Jessica Pegula, and the Italian Jasmine Paolini.

Thus, there is only one debutante in these WTA Finals: Amanda Anisimova, in a lineup that remains quite similar to the last couple of years. Six of the 8 stars of the 2024 WTA Finals will attend, five of them for the third consecutive year, and four of them (Sabalenka, Swiatek, Gauff, and Pegula) are going for their 4th consecutive time in the WTA Finals, showing the consistency they have achieved in recent years as absolute protagonists of the Tour.

Until last week, Mirra Andreeva was holding the spot for the WTA Finals. The Russian teenager was 7th in the Race, but Paolini's campaigns to the quarter-finals in Beijing and semi-finals in Wuhan and Ningbo ended up giving her the 7th place and qualification – causing her to withdraw from playing Tokyo last week.

The last spot remained in a tight dispute between Rybakina and Andreeva, although the Kazakh needed a good amount of points to join Riyadh. And she achieved it, stringing together 6 consecutive wins to take the title in Ningbo, and then reaching the semi-finals in Tokyo – adding the necessary points to reach 6th place in the Race and qualify again for the Finals. The 2022 Wimbledon champion has 20 wins in her last 25 appearances, and will have a close dispute with Keys and Pegula to define her year-end ranking, while the top-5 looks especially firm with little chance of many changes at the top.

Some players, already out of the fight for the Finals, achieved good campaigns this week, led by Belinda Bencic's title – her 7th WTA 500 title, which leaves her on the verge of the top-10. She is competing in Hong Kong this week, but without the chance to qualify for the top-10, even if she wins the championship. Nonetheless, she is in a great position heading into the 2026 season, with good chances of remaining in the fight for the top-10.

Another player who climbed positions was the Czech Linda Noskova, a finalist in Tokyo and who reached the third final of the season – although she is yet to win a title this year. The 20-year-old star reached No. 13 in the Race and is another player who will be closely eyeing the chance to enter the top-10 in 2026.

Other important advances include Sofia Kenin – a semi-finalist in Tokyo – who climbs 5 positions to No. 27, while the American Ann Li reaches No. 36 in the Race after winning the Guangzhou title. Her first title in 5 years.