It seems unimaginable now that Garcia was ranked 79th in the world as recently as May. Her journey since that nadir, which followed an extended break from the tour to recover from a nagging foot injury, has been remarkable. Three titles on three different surfaces, a first grand slam semi-final at the US Open, a return to the top 10 – and now, finally, a victory commensurate with the lavish talent that once saw Andy Murray tip her as a future world No 1.

Garcia may yet fulfil that prediction. She ends the year ranked fourth, matching the career-best mark she first achieved after a late-season flourish in 2017, but the foundations feel firmer this time around, not least because her success has been built over months rather than weeks. She remains 6,710 points behind Iga Swiatek at the top of the rankings but, with only 500 points to defend in the first half of next season, there is every chance Garcia can make up ground if she can sustain her current momentum. 

It also helps that she has greater clarity now. Garcia’s game style, based on all-out attack, requires total conviction and unwavering focus – areas in which Bertrand Perret, the French coach who joined her team at the end of last season, oversaw significant improvements before his abrupt departure last month. Many wondered how Garcia would fare in her compatriot’s absence, yet the early signs are that the lessons learned have stuck. The mental fortitude she showed to navigate the group stage, where she bounced back from a resounding loss against Swiatek to win an all-or-nothing showdown with Daria Kasatkina, bodes well for the challenges that lie ahead. 

“Sometimes there is a big fight, so you have find your way through it,” said Garcia, who came within two points of defeat against Kasatkina. “That was one of the biggest points I improved. That’s also one point that Bertrand was really careful [to emphasise] and putting a lot of intention about it. 

“It was pretty obvious that every time, when I was starting to talk and complain and say ridiculous things on court, it was not really going my way. I was losing a lot of energy, I was losing focus. And every single time when things were not easy or not going my way but I was able to stay quiet, not say a word and really focus on the next point, I made some great comebacks.”

Against Sabalenka, Garcia’s concentration was absolute. In a battle between two of the biggest servers in the women’s game, it could not have been otherwise. Garcia did not face a break point throughout and Sabalenka was barely less dominant. Her only wobbly moments on serve came in the first-set tiebreak, where she double-faulted twice, and at the start of the second set, when a momentary lapse of focus saw her net a volley after she was caught in no-man’s-land. Garcia, as inspired as she was clinical, ripped a winning forehand return, and the Belarusian’s fate was all but sealed.

“I just dropped my level for a little bit in the tiebreak and in the first game of the second set, and that’s it, that was the key,” said Sabalenka, who sat sobbing in her chair with a towel over her head after the final point.

As the 24-year-old later acknowledged, however, progress has been made this season. Sabalenka, who had previously described her qualification for the finals as “a miracle”, has come an awfully long way since the dark days of January, when she hit 21 double faults against Sweden’s Rebecca Peterson in Adelaide as her serve utterly deserted her. The improvements have been partly technical – her work with Gavin MacMillan, a biomechanics expert, reaped dividends at the US Open, where she matched last year’s semi-final run – but predominantly mental.

“During the beginning of this season I was thinking, like, ‘What did I do wrong in life, why is [it] killing me every time, like why, why, just why?’” said Sabalenka, who finishes the year ranked fifth, after her semi-final win over Swiatek. 

“After how the season [went], I changed my mentality, I was like, ‘OK, thank you, it’s really making me stronger.’ I used to think that this is the worst season but actually, looking back, I think it is the best season because it makes me a really strong person, it makes me really tough.”

Sabalenka’s mental strength contributed to a compelling final in which no quarter was given by either woman. So often betrayed by her chief weapon this year, Sabalenka was no more inclined to adopt a safety-first strategy on serve than Garcia was to curb her ultra-aggressive return stance. It made for a thrilling spectacle, one that made a mockery of the curious decision to use the same regular duty Wilson balls that caused Swiatek such consternation over the US Open series. As the players hurled thunderbolts at each other, one wondered what exactly it is that tournament organisers are trying to protect these extraordinary athletes from.

Garcia’s victory marks a suitably unexpected conclusion to a season that has seen Ashleigh Barty retire, Elena Rybakina come from left field to win Wimbledon, and Swiatek, ranked ninth in January, emerge as a dominant world No 1. It remains to be seen whether Garcia can wrest that mantle from the Pole in 2023 – witness the inability of Garbiñe Muguruza to live up to the promise of her similarly renascent title run at last year’s WTA Finals. On this evidence, though, it will be fun to watch her try.

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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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The Belarusian’s victory meant that Ons Jabeur, up against the already-qualified Maria Sakkari, also needed to win in two sets, with second place in Nancy Richey Group then decided by percentage of games won. Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of round-robin tennis. Don’t forget your calculator.

At an event where the players have spent a week living in each other’s pockets, there has been a notable esprit de corps – and Sabalenka, who in common with just about everyone else on the WTA Tour regards Jabeur as a friend, was not about to rock the boat. Insisting she was relaxed about the final outcome – although she was surely fooling no one – Sabalenka said she would resist any temptation to cheer on Sakkari from the stands. 

“Cheering for Sakkari? I was thinking about that, but it’s not right I think,” she laughed. “I did everything that was under my control and now, whatever happens, it doesn’t matter anyway. I’ll take a lot of positive things from this tournament and move on. But still, I really hope that I’ll get through this group.”

In keeping with the convivial mood, Jabeur mischievously wished her rival good luck beforehand, albeit with what Sabalenka described as “an interesting face”. As for the outcome not mattering, Sabalenka certainly cared enough to ask Sakkari, whose outstanding form over the week meant there was nothing riding on her showdown with Jabeur, how ready she felt.

“It was a very weird situation for all three of us,” said Sakkari. “I had both players that are very good friends of mine having a chance to make it.  

“[Sabalenka] asked me before the match if I’m ready. She was like, ‘On a scale of one to 10, how ready are you?’ I said, ‘11.’ But not for her, just in general for the match. It was funny. I think she was pretty relaxed. She got the win today and it was all up to me, I guess.”

Well, yes and no. While Sabalenka did her part, recovering to see out victory after double-faulting three times as she served for the match against Pegula at 5-3 in the second set, Jabeur was partly the architect of her own downfall. Eleven unforced errors in the opening set effectively extinguished the Tunisian’s hopes of advancing, even if a love break as the Greek served for the opener at 5-1 did briefly rekindle memories of Jabeur’s comeback from 6-1, 5-2 down against Sakkari in Rome earlier this year. 

That, though, was a very different Sakkari. Buoyed by last month’s run to the final in Guadalajara, where she became the last player to qualify for Fort Worth courtesy of a quarter-final win over Veronika Kudermetova, the 27-year-old has put an otherwise chequered season behind her this week. She was never in trouble against Jabeur, maintaining her unblemished progress through the group with a 6-2, 6-3 victory that, crucially, ensures she will avoid top seed Iga Swiatek in the semi-finals. Whatever happens from here, Sakkari’s belated return to the kind of free-swinging form that carried her to the French and US Open semi-finals last year augurs well for 2023. 

“I believe that I played my best tennis when I was very aggressive,” she said. “Obviously then, when you lose your confidence, you start doubting and start being more defensive, and just taking a few steps backwards from the baseline. 

“My goal was never to be a defensive player. I have the ability to be a very offensive player, and just being very aggressive. I think that just adding a little bit more, going to the net for the next season, will be the key for me, just closing out points a little bit easier. It’s going to make my life a lot easier. 

“But I had to go back to basics after the blip that I had. I had to go back to making a lot of balls and then work my way [towards] being more aggressive. I think that’s what I did the last few months.”

While Sakkari’s renascent form in Texas has been almost as eye-catching as Swiatek’s, a thought should be spared for the vanquished. 

Jabeur’s failure to catch fire on a court that appeared naturally suited to her game is perhaps the week’s biggest surprise. Having won her first WTA 1000 title in Madrid and gone on to reach the Wimbledon and US Open finals, the 28-year-old has not only compiled the most consistent season of her career but also established herself as the most credible (if still distant) challenger to Swiatek’s supremacy. In Texas, however Jabeur, who came within two points of victory against Sabalenka in her opening match and showed glimpses of her usual self against Pegula, has underwhelmed. It is a failure she intends to address.

“I’m going to be tougher with myself,” said Jabeur. “I want to improve a lot of things. I want to be ready for the next [season]. 

“I’m not going to tell my secret, but there are a lot of things that I want to improve – mentally, physically definitely, there’s always things to improve there. Tennis-wise I just want to be really rock solid and difficult to beat.” 

Someone who has most definitely been difficult to beat in recent times is Pegula. The 28-year-old arrived in Fort Worth fresh from claiming the biggest title of her career in Guadalajara, a result that propelled her to a career-high ranking of third. Widely regarded as a dark horse for the title, the New Yorker came up short not only in her three singles matches but also in the doubles alongside Coco Gauff, where she likewise failed to register a win. 

It has been a sobering experience for both Americans – with only Swiatek to play, Gauff too has yet to win a singles match – but Pegula, who revealed that she has been feeling under the weather, was characteristically equanimous.

“It was a little rough today, I didn’t really feel 100%, I haven’t been feeling well the last couple of days. I feel like the crowd was getting behind me, so I feel bad, but I didn’t quite have the energy to use the crowd as much as I wanted to, especially being [at] home. I tried my best.

“I had a great year this year. I’m bummed about this week, but I think I have to look at the positives throughout the whole year and take that into the off-season and my training going into Australia – which is crazy, already talking about that. But that’s tennis for you, I guess it’s a quick turnaround.”

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None of it mattered. Garcia came away with just five games – the same number Daria Kasatkina garnered in a one-sided battering by the Polish world No 1 two days ago. The aura of invincibility surrounding Swiatek, whose 6-3, 6-2 victory carries her into the last four of the WTA Finals for the first time, is such that her name might as well be inscribed on the trophy already.

There is a long way to go before then, of course. Yet, playing as she did, certainly in the initial stages, Garcia would surely have beaten anyone else in the eight-woman field. The Frenchwoman, who overpowered Swiatek in the Poland Open quarter-finals this summer, is the only singles player in Fort Worth with a victory over the 21-year-old this season, and here she picked up from where she left off in Warsaw, attacking relentlessly behind her serve, taking her returns impossibly early, battering her groundstrokes. 

The mental resilience Swiatek showed to survive the early onslaught was extraordinary. Garcia had treated the Pole’s second serve with disdain in their previous meeting, and when the top seed produced a nervy double-fault en route to being broken in the third game, it looked as though history might be about to repeat itself. 

The challenge posed by Garcia’s aggressive returning is both psychological and technical. On the one hand, there is the intimidation factor; on the other, there is the need to produce execute flawlessly under extreme pressure. She is a tennis highwaywoman, her battle cry “Stand and deliver”. Yet Swiatek rarely fails to deliver these days. As Garcia served to consolidate her advantage, firing down two aces, Swiatek took a leaf out of her opponent’s book, moving in to crush a backhand return for a winner. Another scorching drive off that wing sealed the break back and, once Swiatek survived another stern examination on serve, she was on her way.

“I feel like at the beginning I didn’t have much confidence,” said the French and US Open champion following her 47th straight-sets win of the year. “She broke me, basically, because I couldn’t put my first serve in. But then I changed my technique a little bit, I knew what I had to do, to be more solid, but maybe serve with less power so that I had more control. 

“I’m pretty happy that it worked, because in the next games, maybe I wasn’t serving perfectly, but we played rallies and I felt like in those rallies I could really dominate. 

“It’s the last tournament of the season, so I have kind of nothing to lose. I don’t have to worry what I’m going to do next. So for sure, I’m giving it 100%, physically and mentally.”

It showed. A sequence of eight straight points carried Swiatek to 5-3 and, having survived a testing service game to seal the opener, she broke again at the start of the second set. When Garcia then squandered a 0-40 advantage on Swiatek’s serve in the next game, her fate was as good as sealed. By the latter stages of the second set, she was having to play at the very top of her ability merely to win points. 

Martina Navratilova, providing analysis for Amazon Prime, highlighted a lack of tactical nous on Garcia’s part, in particular her habit of approaching crosscourt, which opened up the angles for Swiatek. And yes, the Frenchwoman was tactically naive at times. But no one will appreciate better than Navratilova the difficulty of thinking clearly in the face of relentless attacking incursions by a rampant world No 1, an area in which the 18-time slam champion was a past master. Garcia vowed to improve.

“I will try to learn the tough lesson Iga gave me,” said the Frenchwoman, who will now face Kasatkina, a 7-6 (8-6), 6-3 winner over Coco Gauff, in a playoff for second place in Tracy Austin Group.

“Iga played a great match, she didn’t give me a lot of space, a lot of mistakes. I think I can still play better, but today was not enough. I will try to see what we can do better with the team to get better on court in two days and face the challenge of Dasha.”

Kasatkina, who has not lost a set in her three meetings with Gauff, recovered from 4-1 down in the opening set as the American teenager struggled with her consistency. Gauff, who is now eliminated after losing her opening match to Garcia in straight sets, ended the night with 43 unforced errors to the Russian’s 14. 

“It was tough,” said Kasatkina, the eighth seed. “I was nervous at the beginning. 

“With the rhythm of the match, nerves disappear a little bit and start to be better. So I’m really happy to be still alive.”

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After narrowly missing out on qualification last year, Jabeur arrived in Fort Worth intent on making up for lost time at an event she has long dreamed of playing. Things didn’t quite go to plan for the 28-year-old in her opener against Aryna Sabalenka, where she was undone in a topsy-turvy decider after coming within two points of a straight-sets victory. By her own admission, the result left her in a dark place, full of “anger and disappointment”.

“Honestly, it was very tough,” said the second-seeded Jabeur, “because I’m used to being depressed for the next two days when I lose. I didn’t have much time. It was very hard to sleep the first day.”

The defeat, which left Jabeur trailing Sabalenka and Maria Sakkari in Nancy Richey Group, brought obvious urgency to her meeting with Jessica Pegula. For a set, though, she appeared to be on course for further heartache. That she recovered to claim a 1-6, 6-3, 6-3 victory owed everything to a belated resolve to play to her strengths rather than simply trying to hit through the American third seed.

“I felt like I was serving good [in] the first set, but she was returning very well,” said Jabeur. “It’s pretty disappointing for someone that hits hard [when] the ball just comes back even harder, so I changed up the rhythm in my serve, I was just trying to place more the serve.

“I was just trying, you know, to have that click in the second set. Less unforced errors with the forehand, for sure, and I think the forehand down the line helped a lot to open up the court for me. I definitely just went more for my shots and tried to impose more my game, slicing a little bit and just changing up the rhythm so she didn’t go super fast, as she did in the first set.”

The expectation had been that Jabeur’s skidding slice backhands and delicate drop shots would be tailor-made for the slow conditions. Pegula was alive to the danger – “She’s just super tricky to play, she’s kind of unorthodox, a lot of slice, and I think it probably will work pretty well on these courts with them being really low bouncing,” the American said beforehand – and set out to counter Jabeur by injecting greater pace into her baseline game. 

When Pegula reeled off seven of the first eight games, her approach looked almost certain to reap dividends. But as Jabeur’s began to find her touch and the games became closer, it was the Tunisian’s ability to navigate the key points that proved decisive. That was never more apparent than at the start of the final set, where Jabeur recovered from 0-40 to win a game of five deuces with a mercurial combination of power and finesse.

“It was just like my first match, it was like a few points,” said Jabeur. “I feel like this whole tournament is all about who’s going to seize those points, who’s going to seize those opportunities to be able to win, because you never know. 

“For example, I lost my first match, but now I’m back in the game [with] one more match left.

“You don’t have a lot of chances… So you really have to focus.”

Sakkari was certainly focused in the second singles match of the day, advancing to the semi-finals for the second year in a row with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Aryna Sabalenka. It leaves the group precariously poised, with even Pegula still able to go through if she beats Sabalenka in straight sets on Friday and Sakkari does the same against Jabeur. It has been a wretched debut for the American, who has lost all four of her matches so far in singles and doubles.

“I take back what I said about the format not really mattering,” said Pegula. “After losing four times in like three days, it definitely kind of sucks more than when you have a week to reset in between tournaments.”

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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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The opening singles match of the star-spangled season finale, which pitted Jessica Pegula against Maria Sakkari, offered an early taste of what promises to be quite the rollercoaster ride.

Barely a week has passed since Pegula, a 28-year-old New Yorker enjoying the finest season of her career, routed Sakkari in straight sets to win her first WTA 1000 title in the zippy environs of Guadalajara, the high-altitude Mexican city where last year’s finals were staged. That Sakkari was able to exact immediate revenge, securing a 7-6 (8-6), 7-6 (7-4) win over the American world No 3, owed much to her ability to handle a challenging surface that, as she acknowledged afterwards, brought a kind of forced clarity to her approach.

“The court is very weird, I have to say,” said Sakkari, the fifth seed. “Maybe it feels weird to me coming from Mexico, that was very fast conditions. But it feels almost that it’s very slow. The ball doesn’t bounce, it bounces very low.

“If you don’t hit the ball then the ball does nothing, so you have to be very aggressive, that’s how I feel. If you don’t hit the serve, then it’s not effective. So you don’t want to give the opponent the chance to be the first one that dominates the point. That’s how it felt to me.”

A hit-or-be-damned surface would seem tailor-made for the big-serving, free-swinging Sakkari, yet the dynamics of an entertaining and high-quality contest were by no means straightforward. In contrast with Guadalajara, where the quick conditions meant Pegula’s flat, precise groundstrokes frequently rushed the Greek into error, Sakkari had plenty of time to wind up her elaborate forehand. But while that allowed her to play with more spin and control, it also afforded Pegula ample opportunity to line up her own shots. 

On the evidence of Mexico, that should have swung the pendulum in the American’s favour. In practice, however, Pegula frequently looked far from her normal phlegmatic self, gesturing at the court in frustration as she was caught out by the low bounce and her apparent anxiety about the optimal string tension. It says much that Pegula, usually one of the tour’s most consistent and adaptable competitors, finished the contest with an uncharacteristic 33 unforced errors.

Make no mistake, though, this was a match won by Sakkari rather than lost by Pegula. Determined to make amends for what happened in Guadalajara, where she felt she was unable to do herself justice after completing a rain-interrupted semi-final win over Marie Bouzkova only hours before the final, Sakkari’s appetite for the fray was apparent from the first game, where she conjured a pair of majestic backhand winners to claim an early break.

Resilient in the rallies and alive to her opponent’s efforts to draw her forward, Sakkari stuck to her guns despite a remarkable show of stubbornness from Pegula. The American world No 3 fought back from a break down three times in the opener, saved two set points in the climatic tiebreak, recovered from 3-0 down in the second set, and saved two match points at 6-5 to force a second tiebreak.

That last act of escapology, which came amid some timid baseline play from Sakkari, briefly raised fears that the Greek’s goose might be cooked. It has been an underwhelming season for the 27-year-old after the highs of last year, when she was a semi-finalist at Roland Garros and Flushing Meadows, but she pushed for home with a third ace of the afternoon before twice out-rallying Pegula to secure the win.

“Now that I have my match played, [I know] I have to be very aggressive,” said Sakkari, who will advance to the last four for a second successive year if she beats Aryna Sabalenka on Wednesday. 

“If I try to grind from two metres behind the baseline, there’s no chance I can win any more matches. So for me, it’s just very clear now what I have to do. Probably the court makes it very simple from my side.”

The expectation was that the surface would prove similarly accommodating for Ons Jabeur, the Tunisian second seed, who opened her campaign against Sabalenka in the second Nancy Richey Group match. Pegula, who enjoyed notable success with her sliced backhand approach against Sakkari, said afterwards that she expected Jabeur, whom she will face next, to reap similar benefits.

“She’s just super tricky to play, she’s kind of unorthodox, a lot of slice and I think it probably will work pretty well on these courts with them being really low bouncing,” said Pegula.

Again, though, it was the bigger hitter who prevailed, Sabalenka rallying from a break down in the decider to prevail 3-6, 7-6 (7-5), 7-5 after Jabeur stood within two points of victory in the second-set tiebreak. For all the slowness of the surface, which would seem to militate against her power, the Belarusian’s “see ball, hit ball” approach may yet prove better suited to the conditions than the skidding sorcery of Jabeur. Go figure.

Sabalenka – who said on the eve of the tournament that, after a challenging year, it was a miracle she had even qualified – afterwards branded her victory over Jabeur, the Wimbledon and US Open finalist, the best of her season. 

“Playing against the No 2 in the world, losing the first set and still [being] able to fight through it, that’s why it’s the biggest win of the season,” said Sabalenka, 24, who is seeded seventh.

Given the conditions, however, it may be only the beginning for the likes of Sabalenka and Sakkari. Like last year, when the challenges of adjusting to the altitude of Guadalajara threw up all manner of surprises – not least Garbiñe Muguruza’s left-field run to the title – anything feels possible. Expect more miracles.

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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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