Eight days after winning the Miami Open, the most significant tournament victory of her career, the 30-year-old American concluded a dominant week at the Charleston Open with a 6-2, 6-1 demolition of Daria Kasatkina to make it back-to-back titles.

It is the second event in a row at which Collins has dropped just one set – for Bernarda Pera last week, read defending champion Ons Jabeur this – and the second time in her career that she has won two events in succession, following her twin triumphs in Palermo and San Jose in the summer of 2021. When she’s hot, she’s hot. 

And for the past fortnight, Collins has been on fire. This was the Floridian’s 13th straight victory – the longest winning streak of a career that, she maintains, will end later this season – and with it she will rise to 15th in the world, just eight spots shy of the career-best ranking she achieved after reaching the Australian Open final two years ago. It has been a fairy tale run, and there may yet be more to come. With 22 wins, Collins not only stands alongside Iga Swiatek and Elena Rybakina as the season’s most consistently successful player, but is also up to fourth in the race to the WTA Finals, for which she has never previously qualified.

“What a whirlwind, to play the match the way that I did and go out and execute my game plan so seamlessly,” said Collins, who intends to retire at the end of the season to start a family. “What a way to win the tournament – and two back-to-back, so really excited about it.

“I’m so locked in and concentrated into what I’m doing right now, I think that’s been one of my biggest areas of improvement, and when I’m this concentrated it makes it tough for anyone.”

It certainly made it tough for Kasatkina. Her affinity with the tournament where she won the first title of her career in 2017 is deep-rooted, and her spirited efforts to keep Collins at bay, even as the American blasted 37 winners and eviscerated her second serve, made plain how much she craved a second success. 

By the latter stages of the second set, however, Kasatkina looked utterly bewildered, just as so many of Collins’s opponents have over this golden period of her career. As she addressed the crowd afterwards, the Russian spoke emotionally of how much the event means to her – “Charleston is maybe the only place where I feel like home, being far from home,” she said, her voice faltering – but her desire was no match for Collins’s quality and aggression.

“Danielle is now playing on the highest level,” said Kasatkina. “It’s not just me, there’s 12 players before who couldn’t beat her.

“She was a hurricane on the court today. I tried everything I could, but today unfortunately it wasn’t enough. This happens. She’s playing with wings, let’s say – she’s fearless and doing her stuff.”

The battle lines were drawn as early as the second game, a miniature epic spanning 12 minutes and eight deuces in which Collins pounded the ball relentlessly while Kasatkina scrambled, retrieved and did her best to counterpunch. The obvious question was whether the 26-year-old, taken the distance in three of her four previous matches, would have the physical, mental and emotional reserves to cope with the power and intensity coming her way. The blazing backhand return with which Collins converted her fourth break point suggested it would be a tough afternoon for Kasatkina, and so it proved. 

That early break set the tone for all that followed. Despite struggling to make her first delivery, Collins was near-perfect when she did so, dominating her own service games while making constant inroads into Kasatkina’s. She saved the only two break points she faced, while her pedal-to-the-metal aggression on the return limited Kasatkina to a success rate of just 28% behind her second serve. When Collins drilled a pair of untouchable backhands to break early in the second set, there would be no way back for the beleaguered fourth seed.

For Collins, who has been beset by so many injuries and physical challenges over her eight years as a professional, this remarkable two-week run has offered a glimpse of what she can achieve with a clean bill of health. Now she will hope to carry her momentum into the European clay-court swing.

“I had a lot of matches in Miami, and I had a lot of matches here,” said Collins. “To be able to physically battle and push myself to a new limit gives me a lot of confidence. I’ve been so happy to be, obviously, playing at the level that I’ve been playing, but to be able to back it up two weeks in a row has just been fantastic.”

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Rybakina is famed for her tranquil exterior but, as she glided serenely back to her chair, beneath the surface her inner duck must have been paddling furiously. Six months ago in Montreal, the Kazakhstani served for victory against Kasatkina in identical circumstances – a set up and serving at 5-4, 30-15 – only for the Russian to climb off the canvas and level the match. By the time Rybakina finally prevailed in a third-set tiebreak, three hours and 27 minutes had passed and it was almost 3am. With a potential straight-sets win once again threatening to turn into something altogether more complicated, the sense of déjà vu was palpable.

This time, though, there would be no repeat. The rain dissipated, Rybakina slammed down a pair of huge serves, and a searing plus-one forehand confirmed a 6-1, 6-4 victory. With a second WTA 500 title of the season secured, all that remained was for Rybakina to amble impassively towards the net, a quiet clench of the fist the only sign that anything out of the ordinary had occurred.

Rybakina’s season has, of course, been anything but ordinary. She has won 11 of her 13 matches so far, and 22 of the 28 sets she has contested. Eight of those sets have been clinched for the loss of one game or less, most notably against Aryna Sabalenka, who was subjected to a first-set whitewash in the Brisbane International final as she fell to her only defeat of the year to date. The only meaningful blemish is a second-round loss to Anna Blinkova at the Australian Open, where the former Wimbledon champion was a finalist last year, after holding six match points.

“Of course, the main focus is always [the] grand slams,” said Rybakina, who will rise one place to fourth in the rankings on Monday. “It didn’t happen this time in Melbourne, but I had a really great first week of the season [in Brisbane] and also now [in Abu Dhabi]. I think I’m on a good path.”

Few would dispute that. Seeded first at a WTA event for only the second time in her career, Rybakina lived up to her billing with a combination of brilliance and belligerence, battling back from a set down to defeat Danielle Collins in the opening round, cruising past Spain’s Cristina Bucșa, and finally getting the better of Liudmila Samsonova, her perennial bête noire, for the first time in five meetings. Against Kasatkina, Rybakina marshalled her power to hit through the blustery conditions, claiming 75% of her first service points and clobbering 17 winners to compound the difficulties facing an opponent who struggled to find her range.

“I started aggressive and I also moved really well,” said Rybakina. “For Daria’s style of the game, I think she needs a bit of time to get used to the pace and to get some rhythm. 

“It was more difficult, of course, in the second set and she played really well. We had longer rallies, the balls became also a little bit older, so it was not easy.”

Kasatkina had won two of their four previous meetings, but the 26-year-old laboured throughout to find her trademark consistency, particularly in the early stages, where a relentless tide of forehands flew long. A natural counter-puncher, the Russian thrives in situations where she can absorb pressure with her outstanding defensive game while employing clever variations of pace and direction to cause damage at the other end. But a tally of 27 unforced errors – including nine double faults, several of which came at key moments – meant Kasatkina was never able to settle.

“I didn’t have enough in the tank for the finals, I squeezed everything I had left,” said Kasatkina, whose draining semi-final win over Beatriz Haddad Maia lasted almost three hours. 

“It wasn’t enough against a player like Elena, where you have to be at your best to have a chance to beat her. Unfortunately, the tournament ended this way, but there’s a lot of positives in this week. There’s nothing to be sad about, but of course it’s always disappointing to lose in the finals.”

Kasatkina’s best moments came after Rybakina broke with an explosive backhand winner in the third game of the second set. Showing greater aggression and feel, she conjured a deft angled slice on the way to an immediate break back, but it was to be an afternoon when every step forward was accompanied by two in the opposite direction. A double fault handed Rybakina three break points in the next game, and although Kasatkina once again hit back at the first time of asking, rifling an exquisite backhand winner to draw level at 3-3, an unreachable forehand approach from Rybakina sealed a decisive break in the ninth game. 

There will be little time to celebrate. Rybakina face Zhu Lin of China on Tuesday at the Qatar Open, although she has at least avoided the fate of Kasatkina, who plays her compatriot Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova on Monday lunchtime. Kasatkina made her displeasure clear following her semi-final win – “Are you guys trying to make players die, or to get injured?” she inquired – and doubled down on her position before boarding an evening flight to Doha.

“The next event is starting for me in a few hours,” said Kasatkina. “That’s a pity, I would say. Definitely I don’t know how I’m going to recover, so let’s see.”

At the WTA 250 event in Cluj-Napoca, Karolina Pliskova claimed her first title in four years with a 6-4, 6-3 win over home favourite Ana Bogdan. 

“[I’m feeling] quite strong emotions, because I didn’t win a title for a couple of years,” said Pliskova, whose last tournament win was in Brisbane in 2020. “Super happy about this week. Definitely before the tournament when I came I didn’t have the expectation to win.”

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In a fitting finale, the towering American’s singles career came to an end in a fifth-set tiebreak on the US Open’s Grandstand court, where the 38-year-old, fighting to the last ball before fighting back tears, was beaten by compatriot Michael Mmoh after leading by two sets to love.

Just for good measure, Isner later returned to lose another final-set super tiebreak, this time alongside Jack Sock, who is following his long-time doubles partner into retirement. 

One of the finest servers in the sport’s history – “the best of all time” according to Andy Murray – Isner rarely relinquished a set without first exploring the opportunities offered by a tiebreak. That tends to happen when you are a 6ft 10in ace machine capable of throwing down deliveries at up to 157mph, as Isner did to set an official ATP record during a Davis Cup match against Australia in 2016. 

Yet for all the ferocity with which he fired a record 14,471 over the course of his 17-year career, Isner has always remained the gentlest of giants. Emotion overwhelmed him after his loss to Mmoh, the veteran covering his face with a towel as the enormity of the moment hit home, and he struggled to speak at times as he addressed the crowd. There were more tears later in the press room, where Isner, who held a match point, attempted to make sense of the day and reflect on his legacy to the sport.

“It’s a range of emotions,” said Isner, who broke his wrist at Flushing Meadows las year and has struggled physically since. “There is, of course, a lot of disappointment with the result of my singles match today, but at the same time a lot of gratitude, as well, just to have one last time playing in an atmosphere like that.

“I like to think I’m a good competitor. I might not win every match, that’s for sure. I might lose a lot of close matches. I might get tight and choke a little bit on the court. That happens. 

“But also, I care. I love this sport, for sure. I want to be remembered as someone who competed pretty hard on the court. I think I did that.  

“Off the court, I think it’s most important within the locker room to have the respect of my colleagues. I think I have that, judging from how many people have spoken to me. Tennis is a… it’s been a huge part of my life. It’s tough to say good-bye. It’s not easy. But eventually this day would come. It’s hard to prepare for the emotions of it.”

Near unbreakable at his best – and often even when far from his best – the former world No 8 was a man made for tiebreaks and attrition. Few will forget his extraordinary victory over Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon in 2010, which spanned three days and finally clocked in at 11 hours and five minutes, the longest match in tennis history. Barely less remarkable was his agonising defeat to Kevin Anderson at the All England Club in 2018, which ended 26-24 in the final set after six hours and 36 minutes, a record for a Wimbledon semi-final (and the fourth longest match of all-time). A top-20 player for a decade between 2010 and 2019, Isner was also a mainstay of American tennis at a time when it had little to shout about.

Yet it was not just a day for tears and statistics. Carlos Alcaraz, the top seed and defending champion, later won a match full of smiles and flashy shot-making against South Africa’s Lloyd Harris, the pair frequently delighting in their mutual dexterity. After an all too brief workout in the opening round, where Germany’s Dominic Koepfer retired midway through the second set after suffering an early ankle injury, Alcaraz advanced in straight sets 6-3, 6-1, 7-6 (7-4), although not before suffering a sharp third-set dip. 

“Sometimes it’s tough to enjoy on court, but I try to most of the time enjoy myself on court, having a smile during the match, making jokes with my team,” said Alcaraz. “It makes me smile and show my best level. 

“I don’t mind if I lose or win, if I’m losing points I [still] high-five with the opponent. I think we did great points. We made entertainment; we’re looking, in every match, to make people enjoy watching tennis.” 

There were some humorous asides, too. Daria Kastakina, who overcame Sofia Kenin 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 to reach the third round for the first time, joked about her poor record in New York when asked about her expectations for the tournament.

“I used to have big expectations here,” said Kastakina, the 13th seed. “But then I checked my record and I realised maybe, ‘Dasha, you have to slow down.’”

Kasatkina, who will play Belgian qualifier Greet Minnen for a place in the last 16, also reflected on the difficulty of getting away from tennis during the US Open, where players adorn billboards and the sport dominates the TV schedule. Alcohol, she quipped might be the only solution. “Well, if we play each other, I’ll bring her the bottle myself,” smiled Ons Jabeur, a 7-6 (9-7), 4-6, 6-3 winner over Linda Noskova. “I’ll make sure she’s hydrated.”

There was nothing light-hearted about Matteo Berrettini’s meeting with Arthur Rinderknech, however, the former Wimbledon finalist leaving the court in a wheelchair after turning an ankle while trailing 6-4, 5-3. It continued an appalling run of injury misfortune for the Italian, who collapsed behind the baseline before emitting a howl of anguish. Berrettini underwent surgery on his right hand last year, and has struggled with a persistent abdominal injury this season.

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As Elena Rybakina was reminded the previous afternoon, the sport’s most hallowed arena can shred the nerves of any player. Burrage, a British wildcard taking centre stage at Wimbledon for the first time in her career, performed her due diligence, seeking advice from Andy Murray as she prepared to face Daria Kasatkina, the Russian world No 11. Despite her trepidation, however, Burrage was determined not merely to endure the experience, but to savour it.

That was the least she deserved. At the age of 24, Burrage has overcome more injuries than most players suffer in a lifetime. She has had three ankle operations, suffered fractures of her knee, arm, rib and wrist, and at one point feared she may never play again. Small wonder, then, that she wept tears of joy after defeating Caty McNally, the American world No 67, in the previous round. If anyone deserved their moment in the sun – not that there was much of that around after another rain-lashed morning in Wimbledon – it was Burrage.

“There’s different ways you can go about it,” said Burrage. “I wanted to take it all in. I like using the crowd to my advantage and stuff, as well. I just wanted to have a look about. 

“It’s obviously a massive court. Never played on anything like that. So for me, instead of thinking it’s not a big deal, I wanted to embrace it. I feel like I did.

“I enjoyed the experience. That’s why the smile was on my face. It’s one of my dreams to walk out on to Centre Court. I’ve done that. If I can’t enjoy it, what else can I [enjoy]?”

When it came to the business of hitting tennis balls, however, enjoyment proved hard to come by for Burrage. Overwrought by the occasion early on, and outplayed by Kasatkina virtually throughout, she was soundly beaten, 6-0, 6-2 in exactly one hour. 

A clean, powerful ball-striker who likes to dictate from the baseline, Burrage showcased her quality during her run to a maiden tour-level final last month in Nottingham, where she defeated a trio of top-100 players in Magda Linette, Magdalena Frech and Alizé Cornet. Kasatkina, though, is a different kind of opponent, a master of court craft and geometry whose forehand alone is a study in subtle changes of pace, spin and trajectory. 

As Burrage struggled to quell her anxiety, mistiming her groundstrokes and double-faulting five times over the course of a wretched opening set, her woes were compounded by the Russian’s disruptive shot-making and metronomic consistency. To her credit, Burrage never allowed her head to drop during that early phase, greeting each minor success with a quiet clench of the fist even as the games flew by with alarming speed. 

The world No 108 was rewarded for her positivity early in the second set, where a drop volley brought up a first game point of the match on her own serve. Up in the Royal Box, David Beckham looked on expectantly. If Burrage was to avoid the nightmare scenario of a Centre Court whitewash, this was the moment. Seconds later, Kastakina screwed a backhand wide and Burrage, to her palpable relief, was finally on the scoreboard.   

With that hurdle overcome, the Briton went on to play her best return game of the contest, breaking to love with a sweeping forehand winner. Twice in the next game she came within a point of a 3-1 lead, but Kasatkina patiently bided her time, extending the rallies until her opponent strayed into error. To Burrage’s evident frustration, her momentum was then arrested further by a rain delay. There would be no way back.

“My next experience I feel like I’ll be more prepared,” said Burrage. “I’ll speak to my team about those nerves and how to deal with them a little bit better.  

“My opponent made me play so many balls. She missed like two or three in the first set. I missed a fair few. She’s probably my worst nightmare to play, someone who just makes balls. It wasn’t an easy matchup for me.

“She plays such long rallies… when I’m having to hit 10, 11, 12 shots, it is not easy. It’s not where I want to be.”

Kasatkina, for her part, was simply happy to be back at Wimbledon following last year’s ban on players from her homeland. One of few Russian players to publicly denounce the war in Ukraine, she was warmly received by the Centre Court crowd and no doubt further endeared herself to the British public with her empathy for Burrage’s plight.

“I think it was more difficult for her today to handle this pressure,” said Kasatkina, a finalist last week in Eastbourne. “I completely understand, playing at home, playing on the central court at Wimbledon, especially, it’s a lot of pressure.  

“You could see the beginning was very difficult for her to handle. I also was very nervous, to be honest, because the atmosphere in the central court, it’s electric. You can’t prepare for that, and this is how I felt entering the court. It’s very difficult.”

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Kasatkina, who began her campaign at the Eastbourne International with a 6-3, 6-1 win over Ukraine’s Anhelina Kalinina, said she has found it difficult to switch off from news coverage of the invasion, much of which she has found overwhelming.

The 26-year-old described the situation as a “complete nightmare” last year, calling for an end to the conflict. In the same interview, Kasatkina also came out as gay, admitting that she feared she would never be able to return to her homeland, where “gay propaganda” and anti-war sentiment are both subject to legal strictures.

“Obviously Ukrainians are experiencing a way worse situation,” said Kastakina. “But also, I mean, I can feel the same. I’m very worried for the people I love.

“It feels shit, honestly. I’m not going to hide it. It’s tough to face the circumstances for such a long time already. Unfortunately, as we see, particularly me or, like, tennis players, there’s nothing we can do about it. We have to just follow what’s going on.  

“I’m just trying to be a good human in this scenario. That’s all I can do. And do my job as playing tennis. That’s it.

“When I’m on the court, I am in a different state of mind, which actually helps me to turn off from all this. Because since the beginning of the war, I was actually following everything, every day. 

“It’s a lot. I was overwhelmed in some moments, and I’m just trying to turn off my head, at least on the tennis court. It helps me a lot.”

Kasatkina has friends and family in Russia and the abortive rebellion led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the paramilitary chief whose troops briefly bore down on Moscow at the weekend, did nothing to allay her unease.

“I have friends in Russia,” said Kasatkina. “My family, my parents are still in Russia. As you can see, the last few days it’s been a big mess there. I’m worried for my friends, because my best friends, they actually live in Voronezh, [which] was one of the cities where [Prigozhin’s forces] entered.  

“So I was pretty worried about that, because they were very scared. So was I, because I couldn’t do anything except to offer them to go to my city, because it’s further [away], so was not involved in the situation.”

Kasatkina’s stance on the war has earned the respect of Ukrainian players, including Elina Svitolina, the former world No 3, who hailed the world No 11 as “a brave one” after defeating her at Roland Garros earlier this month. 

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Of course, for a player of Djokovic’s stature, a record like that is little more than a statistical footnote. The Serb is infinitely more interested in edging ahead of Nadal in the hard currency of grand slam trophies, a feat he would achieve were he to lift the Coupe des Mousquetaires for a third time next weekend. 

Even so, to eclipse Nadal in any respect at an event where he has been so dominant that a statue has been erected in the grounds in his honour, one must clearly be doing something right. Djokovic’s little slice of Roland Garros history is a reminder that he has been comfortably the world’s second best clay-court player for almost two decades, quite an achievement in itself when you consider it is the surface on which he is least comfortable.

“I’m proud of it, but my attention is already on the next match,” said Djokovic, who will face Karen Khachanov, the Russian 11th seed, for a place in the last eight. 

“Obviously, quarter-finals, Khachanov, I know what my goal is here. I’m trying to stay the course mentally and not look too far. The performance of today gives me a great deal of confidence about how I felt, about how I played.”

With the possibility of a blockbuster semi-final against Carlos Alcaraz moving ever closer, such confidence will be needful. Alcaraz dispatched Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti, the 17th seed and a man almost as flamboyant of shot as the Spanish world No 1 himself, in straight sets, matching Djokovic’s 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 score-line to accentuate the sense that the pair are destined to collide. Alcaraz won their only previous encounter, a tight three-setter at last year’s Madrid Open, but they have yet to meet over five sets at a major. 

“I think this was my best match in the tournament so far,” said Alcaraz, who will face former finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas, against whom he is unbeaten in four meetings, in the quarter-finals. “I think I played a good level.”

Musetti had hoped to dictate with his forehand, focusing his attack on Alcaraz’s backhand side to carve out space before delivering the coup de grâce to the opposite corner. A similar strategy served the 21-year-old well last summer in Hamburg, where he consigned Alcaraz to his first defeat in a final. But Musetti, not helped by a second-serve win percentage that languished at 33% in the first set and 38% in the second, was never allowed to play the match on his own terms. For all the sumptuous shot-making displayed by both men, Alcaraz was the more solid player at the key moments. 

“He is probably the best player in the world, and at the moment it’s really tough to beat him, especially on clay,” said Musetti. “I think he grew a lot since the last meeting we had in Hamburg.

“I think today he showed that he probably can win this tournament.”

Djokovic is all too aware of the challenge that lies ahead.

“You always follow the top guys in your half, how they’re playing,” said the Serb. “Of course you’re looking, you’re analysing everyone’s game. You’re basically following what’s going on in the draw.  

“But most of the attention is obviously focused on you, on what you need to deliver on the court, how you need to perform, how you need to win the next match. It’s only about the next step. But of course I do keep in mind what the others are doing.”

Djokovic’s vigilance extends to Nadal, who will be side-lined for a further five months after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on the hip injury that has kept him out of action since the Australian Open.

“I really hope that his rehabilitation process can go well and that we can see him next season,” said Djokovic. 

“I think that he’s so important for our game on and off the court, one of the greatest legends of tennis in the history of the game. We want to see a healthy Rafa, no question about it, playing for what he has announced [will be] his last season. 

“Hopefully he’s going to be able to do that.”

In the women’s singles, Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina’s fairytale run continued as she defeated Daria Kasatkina, the Russian ninth seed, 6-4, 7-6 (7-5). Svitolina, who is married to the French player Gaël Monfils and gave birth to the couple’s first child eight months ago, will face Aryna Sabalenka, the second seed, in the quarter-finals.

“I have played [my] last two matches against Russian players so it will not change, everything will be same,” said Svitolina of the prospect of facing the Belarusian.

Sabalenka, meanwhile, who came through a testing match against former finalist Sloane Stephens on Sunday night, declined the opportunity to hold an open press conference for the second match in a row. The Australian Open champion said after her third-round win over Russia’s Kamilla Rakhimova that she did not “feel safe” addressing the press after she was twice challenged by a Ukrainian reporter over the Putin regime’s invasion of the country, which is supported by Belarus.

“She’s playing really great tennis here in Paris, moving well,” Sabalenka said of Svitolina following her 7-6 (7-5), 6-4 victory. 

“[She’s] another player who is going to run a lot and put a lot of balls back, and I just have to be patient and wait for that perfect shot to finish the point.” 

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“I was up in the first set and then I kind of lost my focus a little bit, and she came back right away,” said Garcia after two hours and 27 minutes of mesmerising drama that pitted the Frenchwoman’s high-octane brand of attacking tennis against the consistency and counterpunching of the Russian world No 8. 

“She’s uses every opportunity she has to put pressure on you, and sometimes I was not able to control my myself enough. 

“I think the second set was very clean from my side, and I was really going for it, it was really working well. The third set was a big battle from the beginning. I was trying to be aggressive, she was trying to bring back every ball. It was a crazy scenario.”

It could have been crazier. In contrast with the previous day, when Nancy Richey Group would have been decided by percentage of games won had results fallen differently, this was a straight shootout for the last semi-final spot. That Garcia squeaked home by the narrowest of margins was ultimately down to her unwavering commitment to bold, first-strike tennis in the face of Kasatkina’s frequently impenetrable defensive skills. Time and again, the French sixth seed found herself having to hit one more ball, frequently straying into error as Kasatkina simply refused to lie down. 

But Garcia never doubted herself, never stopped pushing, and her reward will come in the form of a semi-final meeting with fifth seed Maria Sakkari, against whom she has twice prevailed previously. It is a scenario Garcia could barely have imagined in May, when she returned to the tour after taking several weeks off to recover from a nagging foot injury. Bereft of confidence and momentum, and without a title in three years, the former world No 4 found herself languishing at 79th, her lowest ranking in eight years. 

What no one could have suspected then was that the work she had been putting in with Bertrand Perret, the experienced French coach who joined her team at the end of last season, was about to reap spectacular dividends. Encouraged by Perret to persevere with the audacious brand of first-strike tennis that had brought her success in the past, Garcia went on a summer tear that brought titles on the grass of Bad Homburg, the clay of Warsaw and the hard courts of Cincinnati. As her ranking soared, so too did her belief, propelling her to 13 straight wins that culminated with a first grand slam semi-final at the US Open.

Then, things began to get complicated. Garcia went to Tokyo and lost in the first round. The same fate befell her in San Diego, while in Guadalajara she lasted only a round longer before falling to Sloane Stephens. It was hardly the best preparation for her return to the WTA Finals after a five-year hiatus, and the outlook became bleaker still when Perret left her camp on the eve of the championships muttering darkly of problems that “spoilt the atmosphere”. How would the Frenchwoman fare in the absence of the mastermind behind her renaissance? Pretty well, as it turns out, although she concedes it hasn’t been easy.

“The time after the US Open was definitely tricky and not easy to manage,” said Garcia, alluding to her loss to Shuai Zhang in Tokyo, where she held a match point. “I couldn’t really find my rhythm, and my mentality was not the best one of this year. 

“There was a lot of things to manage, obviously. I mean, it’s like in normal life, when you have been travelling with someone and spending time on court for 10 months – it’s not like we were seeing each other when we were off court but, when it was on court, I was seeing Bertrand a lot. The results were good this year, so there was obviously a good connection, and then this person is not there any more, so you have to adjust a little bit. 

“On top of this, there is the stress of being qualified for the top eight, where you wanted to do good. So I was definitely putting a lot of pressure on myself. We did a good effort with the team that was present here to keep the great memory of all this year, all I learned.”

Despite the obvious stylistic contrasts, it was also a meeting of kindred spirits, for Kastakina too knows what it is to reclimb the mountain. In late 2018, the 25-year-old broke into the top 10 for the first time; by the end of the following year, crushed by the weight of her own expectations, she was ranked 70th.

Like Garcia, Kasatkina lost confidence in her game. At one point, she even considered quitting tennis altogether. Yet the Russian has reclaimed her place among the elite this season, reaching her first major semi-final at Roland Garros and winning titles in San Jose and Granby ahead of the US Open. Against Garcia, she more than lived up to her good-humoured prediction that she would be forced into the role of “goalkeeper”. 

Having driven Garcia to distraction with her defensive skills to recover a 4-2 deficit in the first set, Kasatkina was undone by a pair of double faults early in the second. That sparked a dramatic alteration in the mental balance of the match, with Garcia reeling off six consecutive games. But despite her continued travails on serve, Kasatkina refused to yield, twice recovering from early break in the decider. 

The second of those acts of escapology, which came courtesy of a beautiful flicked pick-up and a spectacular running backhand, threatened to shift the momentum decisively in Kasatkina’s favour. Garcia responded in kind, however, battling through a lengthy service game to level at 4-4, and the Russian needed all her resolve to survive the next game, toiling for 13 minutes as she saved six break points. In the end, it all came down to a long, gruelling rally at the end of a long, gruelling tiebreak, a final burst of aggression sealing the win for the net-rushing Garcia.

Kasatkina can nonetheless reflect with satisfaction on a season that has brought a return to the game’s top table in spite of off-court challenges. Unable to compete at Wimbledon because of the tournament’s ban on Russian and Belarusian players, she has been openly critical of her country’s war with Ukraine. She also came out as gay four months ago, revealing that she is in a relationship with the Tallinn-born figure skater Natalia Zabiiako, an equally courageous step given the discrimination towards homosexuality and gender variance in her homeland.

“Of course, it’s tough to lose like this, six in the third at such a big event, and [in] the last match of the year for me. To finish like this hurts, but to look behind [at] everything that happened this season, how the season was going, I have to be really happy and proud of myself.

“Now I’m just hoping to rest and disconnect and recharge, because it’s been a hell of a season, a very long season, a lot of travel, tournaments, matches. A lot of stress as well, not just with [personal] things but with everything that was going on in the world.”

While a well-earned holiday in the Maldives now beckons for Kasatkina, Garcia advances to the semi-finals alongside Iga Swiatek, who completed an unblemished group campaign with a 6-3, 6-0 win over Coco Gauff.

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It was like watching a more one-sided version of the famous “battle of the surfaces” exhibition of 2007, when Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal faced off on a court that was half clay, half grass. At one end, Swiatek looked for all the world as though she were back on the terre battue of Roland Garros, such time did she have to set up her shots on a surface slow enough to have been branded “weird” by Maria Sakkari. At the other end, Kasatkina gave a passable impression of a woman playing on polished wood, so frenetic were her efforts to keep pace with the Polish world No 1’s relentless baseline bombardment.

“Against Dasha I knew it was going to be pretty hard to balance being aggressive and not making a lot of mistakes, because she can really reset the rallies,” said Swiatek after her fifth win of the year over Kasatkina.

“I’m pretty happy at the beginning I was able to be proactive but, on the other hand, really solid.”

On a court that plays naturally to her strengths, Swiatek was quick to find that devastating blend of boldness and consistency. The sequence with which she wrapped up her opening service game – drilled backhand winner, drop shot, blazing swing volley – was merely the prelude to a devastating display of front-foot tennis. 

That Kasatkina managed to stretch the contest to an hour and 22 minutes spoke volumes for her tenacity, but in truth she had little else with which to hurt the top seed. It is not a good match-up for the Russian, whose whippy forehand and kick serve are reminiscent of Swiatek’s while offering nothing like the same potency. 

“I’m trying to really play proactively and dominant,” said Swiatek, the French and US Open champion, following her 13th consecutive win over a top-10 player.

“I know how it is to play topspin, because I’m a topspin player as well. This year I’ve started playing more flat, but she’s using topspin a lot, so I feel like I can really figure it out.”

Swiatek will have more deciphering to do in a couple of days’ time when she faces Caroline Garcia, the buccaneering Frenchwoman who upset her on home soil this summer at the Poland Open. Garcia, the only player in the eight-woman field to have beaten Swiatek this season, came through 6-4, 6-3 against fourth seed Coco Gauff, ensuring that all four debutants at this year’s finals enter the second round of group matches without a win.

In an absorbing contest between two of the finest athletes in the women’s game, Garcia’s relentless aggression proved decisive. Her high-risk, high-reward style, based around a heavy, accurate serve and a penchant for drilling her returns from well inside the baseline, are a natural fit for the surface. Gauff was left ruing her failure to match her opponent’s boldness.

“I’m not really one to focus on the speed of the court, you just have to adjust as you go,” said the fourth-seeded American.

“But I think the main way to play is definitely aggressive. Usually, your typical neutral ball on this court won’t be neutral, it’ll be more offensive for the other player, so I think I’m just trying to understand the shots I need to play and when I need to play them.”

For Garcia, back at the WTA Finals for the first time in five years after a renascent summer that has brought titles on three different surfaces, the question now is whether she can replicate the devastating performance she produced against Swiatek in Warsaw. 

“It’s definitely a good experience to take from the Poland Open, it gave me confidence,” said the 29-year-old. “To be aggressive is probably the best way to try to beat her. When she has time to do her things, it’s very complicated. 

“She changes direction so well, she moves very well on court with her sliding, she looks like she’s covering two courts when you cover only one.”

It is an assessment that Kasatkina, handed a trial by fire, will affirm. Yet the Russian is hoping for better in her next match, which will come on Thursday against Gauff.

“It’s my first experience of playing in the finals,” said Kasatkina. “To face the No 1 player in the world in the first match is not easy. 

“But I’ve still got a chance – this is a very nice thing about this event… I’ve got a second life, like in the video games.”

The problem for Kasatkina, and everyone else in Fort Worth with title pretensions, is that Swiatek is already playing tennis straight out of a video game.

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For Swiatek, who goes into the season-ending showpiece as a runaway favourite, records have come thick and fast in the nine months since Ashleigh Barty’s retirement. The 37-match winning streak that established her dominance was the best since Martina Hingis in 1997, while her French and US Open wins made her the first player to win two majors in a year since Angelique Kerber in 2016. The love set with which she rounded off her recent title run in San Diego was her 21st of the season, the most since Serena Williams won 25 in 2013. Swiatek is also the first player to accumulate more than 10,000 ranking points in a year since Williams in 2015. By any measure, it has been a historic campaign.

No wonder Swiatek said she would prepare for her opening match in Fort Worth, Texas, by chilling out with a good movie. The 21-year-old may have lost two of her three group matches on her WTA Finals debut in Guadalajara last year, but times have moved on. Even the prospect of using the same regular duty Wilson balls that caused her such consternation during the US Open series seems to have left her unfazed.

“I just try to not think about and not overanalyse my opener and the obstacles that I’m going to face,” said Swiatek, looking ahead to her first match in Tracy Austin Group.

“I usually know what to do, and I have good routines to keep myself fresh and rest properly. I guess that’s the main thing I’m focusing about. We’re not practising too much the day before the match, so there’s a lot of free time, and it’s good to find a good movie that is going to keep you chilled.”

As she contemplates the field, Swiatek may see something of herself in some of her rivals; what she will not find is another player with the same blend of ability, intelligence and hunger that makes her the irresistible title favourite.

Take Daria Kasatkina, the 25-year-old Russian against whom Swiatek will open her challenge. Like the Pole, Kasatkina has compiled her best season to date, reaching a career-high ranking of eighth and making her first grand slam semi-final at Roland Garros. But in her last four meetings with Swiatek, which included a third-round defeat at Melbourne Park and a 6-2, 6-1 hammering in Paris, Kasatkina has garnered the princely sum of 14 games. 

“I think the intensity Iga puts in her game is uncomfortable for most of the players,” said Kasatkina. “Facing this game, it’s different.”

The Russian will not be the only player bearing the baggage of past setbacks into her group-stage meeting with Swiatek. Coco Gauff, who arrives in Texas as the youngest qualifier for the WTA Finals since Maria Sharapova in 2004, has yet to claim a set in four meetings with the world No 1. The most recent of those defeats came barely a fortnight ago in San Diego, where Gauff was subjected to a 6-0, 6-3 mauling, but the most significant was at the French Open this summer, where the 18-year-old’s first grand slam final ended in similarly humbling fashion. 

Gauff, however, is an old head on young shoulders (another quality shared by Swiatek), and her unshakable belief that a loss can be a win if lessons are learned has seen her rebound from that setback quite magnificently. An outstanding summer hard-court season has brought quarter-final finishes in California, Toronto, New York, San Diego and Guadalajara. Riding high at No 4 in the rankings, Gauff regards the prospect of another tilt at Swiatek as an opportunity to be embraced. 

“It’s going to be a tough match,” said the American. “I haven’t beaten her yet. It’s an opportunity just to try again and hopefully see what I can do. I definitely learned a lot from that match in San Diego.”

The good news for both Kasatkina and Gauff is that the round-robin format means their semi-final hopes do not rest solely on finding a way past the Pole. The bad news is that the fourth member of Tracy Austin Group is Caroline Garcia, the summer’s form player, whose season’s haul of three titles – second only to Swiatek – is all the more impressive for having been achieved on three different surfaces. The Frenchwoman, who defeated Gauff en route to the US Open semi-finals and scored a stunning upset over Swiatek in Warsaw this summer, has demonstrated that she has the potential to beat anyone.

Less certain is how Garcia will rebound from her recent split with Bertrand Perret, the experienced French coach who took up the reins from her father, Louis Paul, at the end of last year. The influence of Perret, who reinforced Garcia’s commitment to the bold, first-strike style that once carried her to No 4 in the world, has been a central factor in her summer renaissance. By all accounts it was a messy divorce. – “In recent weeks, there have been problems,” Perret recently told L’Equipe – and though both parties have since made amicable noises, Garcia is aware of the need to retain focus and clarity.

“[Perret] decided to leave the team after Mexico, and I respected the decision,” said Garcia, who will be supported in Texas by Juan Pablo Guzmán, a former top-100 player who has already worked with her this year. “Now I have to be focused on the present, on the action, my best preparation I can have to play this tournament. 

“It’s a big one. So I have to keep my mind clear and just be focused on the moment.”

The greatest threat to Swiatek’s aspirations is likely to come from Ons Jabeur, the Tunisian trailblazer who heads up Nancy Richey Group. A beaten finalist at Wimbledon and the US Open, the 28-year-old world No 2 is not only the first Arab or African woman to reach a major final but also the highest-ranked. Eager to take the final step to a first big title – her victory at the Madrid Open in May remains her most significant win to date – Jabeur, one of four debutants at this year’s season finale, skipped San Diego and Guadalajara to hone her preparations.

“The choice of just training and making myself stronger physically will definitely help me be ready for this tournament and also for next year,” said Jabeur, who will open her challenge against Aryna Sabalenka, the powerful Belarusian who has won the two most recent of their three meetings.

“It’s not the best to start playing against Aryna, with all the balls coming very fast,” added Jabeur. “It’s going to be tough. Whoever is going to be more solid on the court is going to win.”

A slow, low-bouncing indoor court should help Jabeur to nullify Sabalenka’s power and bring her slice and touch to bear. Yet, in a group that also includes Maria Sakkari and Jessica Pegula, the Tunisian will have her work cut out, not least because Sakkari and Sabalenka could be forgiven for approaching the finals as a free hit. Both have struggled to build on their outstanding achievements last year, when they each made two grand slam semi-finals, and the fact that they have made it to Texas at all is testimony to their enduring quality and grit.

Sabalenka, whose serve began to desert her this time last year in Guadalajara before going completely AWOL in Australia, has endured a particularly torrid time of it. Yet she has shown enormous mental strength, learning to drown out the external noise and place faith in other elements of her game. That was nowhere more apparent than at the US Open, where she salvaged her season by saving two match points against Kaia Kanepi in the second round before going on to repeat last year’s run to the semi-finals.

Through all her travails, Sabalenka’s ability to laugh at herself has remained endearingly intact. 

“Just don’t listen anybody,” she said in response to an inquiry about the best advice she has received. “Follow your, like – I don’t know how to say – journey and just don’t give a fuck about what people are saying. Sorry, there’s no way to say it differently. This is just the only one way.”

Sakkari has shown similar resolve, not least in Guadalajara, where she secured qualification for the finals at the 11th hour with a tenacious three-set win over Veronika Kudermetova en route to her second WTA 1000 final of the year. The Greek could hardly have anticipated that her season would hinge on that last-ditch effort in March, when she reached a career-high ranking of third, but she has never stopped fighting. 

“I’m very excited that a very challenging season is going to finish in a very good way, no matter how it goes here,” said Sakkari. “It’s just a reward that I’m in this tournament.”

That leaves Pegula, who arrives in Fort Worth on the crest of a wave after a barnstorming run in Guadalajara, where she defeated a quartet of former grand slam champions in Elena Rybakina, Bianca Andreescu, Sloane Stephens and Victoria Azarenka, before dismantling Sakkari in straight sets to claim her first WTA 1000 title. Up to No 3 in the world, the 28-year-old has been a fixture at the sharp end of tournaments this year, reaching three grand slam quarter-finals as well as the Madrid Open final. Now, having won the biggest title of her career, Pegula looks primed for further success – even if she remains as understated as ever.

“It’s a huge honour,” said Pegula of claiming a place among the elite for the first time. “I think we’re just all really excited to be here.

“Obviously you want to win, but at the same time to me it feels different because it’s not a tournament. It’s a different format, less players. 

“It’s just a different week, but it’s kind of a fun way to cap off the year. So, again, it feels kind of more like a reward, but an earned reward. It’s satisfying.”

If Pegula is to continue on her upward trajectory, she will need to find a way past Swiatek, who stopped her not only at Roland Garros and Flushing Meadows but also in the Miami and San Diego semi-finals. Asked in Guadalajara whether she could go deeper in the majors next season, she quipped: “Hopefully, as long as I don’t play Iga in the quarterfinals.” 

Therein lies the problem for the rest of the field in Fort Worth. Perhaps they should take a leaf out of Jabeur’s book. Kitted out in a full Halloween costume, the Tunisian scared the living daylights out of Swiatek by creeping up behind her while she was conducting her pre-tournament media duties. The Pole has not looked so terrified since she last saw a grass court. The WTA Finals nonetheless feel like hers to lose.

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It would be putting it mildly to say that Snigur, ranked 124th in the world, does things her own way. Her forehand, struck flat with an extended, seemingly telescopic arm, puts one in mind of an airborne albatross. Her backhand is for the most part an ungainly scoop – except when Snigur is pulled into the corners, from where she tends to wield her racket like an oversized fly-swatter. The serve, meanwhile, in which Snigur’s feet come together quickly before the most cursory of knee bends, is delivered with an awkward, toppling motion. Unorthodox barely begins to cover it.

Make no mistake, though, the wonderfully engaging 20-year-old can play, as she demonstrated with a remarkable, emotionally charged 6-2, 0-6, 6-4 victory over seventh seed Simona Halep, who had arrived in New York as one of the title favourites following her recent victory in Toronto. It was a tenacious, composed performance from Snigur, who calmly made the most of a strangely subdued start by Halep, remained unflappable in the face of a second-set whitewash, and held her nerve down the stretch as the former world No 1 reeled off three consecutive games from 5-1 down.

Snigur’s resilience has been forged by adversity. Russian bombing forced the former junior Wimbledon champion to abandon her training base in Kyiv, the city of her birth, and she prepared for the US Open in Latvia. Last week, she participated in Tennis Plays for Peace, an exhibition event at Flushing Meadows that was supported by Iga Swiatek and Rafael Nadal, and raised $1.2m for humanitarian relief efforts in Ukraine. It has been a turbulent period in Snigur’s life and, when Halep stabbed a final backhand into the net to confirm the most improbable of outcomes, she dissolved into tears. In the stands, her father held his head in disbelief. Still overcome by emotion, Snigur formed a heart shape with her hands around a ribbon in the colours of the Ukrainian flag as she drank in the crowd’s applause.

“This is a victory for Ukraine, for all Ukrainian people, for my family, for my team,” said Snigur. “The situation is bad, of course. I try to do the best for Ukraine, I try to support my country. It’s not so easy because the war is continuing. Sometimes it’s impossible to play, but I try to do my best because I want to live in Ukraine.

“Before the war, I practised in Kyiv. But Russia bombed my base, so before the US Open I practised in Riga with my coach. But I don’t have a base where I can practise every time.”

There was another major shock in the women’s singles when Harriet Dart, the British No 2, came through in three sets against Daria Kasatkina, the Russian 10th seed. Dart, who had never previously won a match at the US Open, defied the torrid conditions on Court 12 to claim a 7-6 (10-8), 1-6, 6-3 over the French Open semi-finalist.

In the men’s singles, Stefanos Tsitsipas joined the casualty list as the Greek fourth seed tumbled to a 6-0, 6-1, 3-6 ,7-5 defeat against Daniel Galan, a Colombian qualifier ranked 94th in the world. 

Tsitsipas, a finalist in Cincinnati, arrived at Flushing Meadows as one of five players capable of ending the tournament as world No 1. But as Galan stormed into a 6-0, 5-0 lead, hitting freely in the blustery conditions, Tsitsipas struggled to find his range and sprayed unforced errors – 27 in the first two sets alone. Despite a much improved showing in the third set, and a courageous attempt to cling on as he fought off eight match points, it was a start from which the 24-year-old never quite recovered. 

“I was very motivated and pumped before the US Open started, because I knew I could use this tournament to get closer to the No 1 spot,” said Tsitsipas. “It would be very weird and very unusual if it didn’t cross my mind, because this is something I wanted since I was a kid, and I knew this was my chance. 

“It just didn’t go as planned. Sometimes you just need to let it go, you don’t need to overthink it, you don’t need to push yourself too hard. But at the same time it’s difficult, because there’s this open opportunity right in front of you, you don’t want to mess it up, you don’t want to waste it.”

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