WTA Finals predictions, odds and tennis betting tips: Swiatek can rise to the top

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Live on Amazon Prime Video, from 10pm Sunday

Best bets

Iga Swiatek to win WTA Finals
2pts 13-5 Coral, Ladbrokes

Jessica Pegula to win WTA Finals
1pt 8-1 Coral, Ladbrokes

WTA Finals previews

There is plenty at stake this week in Cancun, where the world’s best female tennis players will face off in the season-ending WTA Finals.

The tournament pits the eight best WTA players in the world against each other, although Karolina Muchova has been forced to withdraw with a wrist injury so has been replaced by Maria Sakkari.

World number one Aryna Sabalenka has a lot of ranking points to defend following her runner-up effort to Caroline Garcia last year, so victory for Iga Swiatek could well see the Pole regain her place at the top of the rankings.

Losing world-number-one status to Sabalenka would have hurt Swiatek and she has responded well to the setback, easing to the China Open title earlier this month.

The Finals draw looks generous for the 22-year-old, who has been housed in the Chetumal Group alongside US Open champion Cori Gauff and Wimbledon finalists Marketa Vondrousova and Ons Jabeur.

Swiatek brushed aside Gauff 6-2 6-3 in the China Open semi-finals and she has won eight of her nine previous meetings with the American.

Surprise Wimbledon champion Vondrousova proved her SW19 success was no fluke with a run to the quarter-finals of the US Open in September.

However, she has played only one competitive match since her Flushing Meadows exit, losing in three sets to Anhelina Kalinina in Beijing, so looks vulnerable.

Jabeur has similar fitness concerns as she was forced to withdraw prior to her quarter-final encounter with Daria Kasatkina in Zhengzhou a fortnight ago.

That means Swiatek has a gilt-edged opportunity to top her section and from there she could take plenty of beating.

The Bacalar Group looks more competitive, with Sabalenka headlining a quartet of Elena Rybakina, Jessica Pegula and substitute Sakkari.

Sabalenka was beaten 7-5 6-2 by Rybakina in the quarter-finals of the China Open earlier this month and she lost the US Open final to Gauff.

With Sakkari having lost three of her last five matches and Rybakina hard to weigh up following a muddling year, there’s a chance Pegula could put her best foot forward and she looks the overpriced of the four.

The American won the Korea Open in Seoul in preparation for Cancun and, in a tournament which can throw up strange results after a long season, she may prove to be Swiatek’s biggest threat.

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