Following a week of gut-busting matches at the WTA Finals, former US Open champion Sloane Stephens will take on Elina Svitolina for the trophy on Sunday. At stake is the world No.4 position as well as an extra $1.75 million in prize money for the winner.
Coming off her 2017 US Open title, Stephens subsequently went on an eight-match losing streak, which bled into her 2018 season. But once Stephens got a few wins under her belt, she quickly rose back to prominence, winning the Premier Mandatory at Miami in March. She would go on to make the final at Roland Garros, where she was up a set and a break before Simona Halep mounted a comeback to win her first Major title. Back in North America this summer, Sloane was a finalist in Montreal, again falling to Halep in the final. At the US Open as the defending champion, she was playing well before succumbing to Anastasija Sevastova in the quarterfinals on an extremely hot and humid day. Now she’s into the third biggest final of her career at the WTA Finals.
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After a 2017 season where she won five titles and entered the top 10 for the first time, Svitolina failed to build upon that success in 2018. While she remained in the top 10 and qualified for Singapore for the second straight year, she won only three titles this season, and hasn’t won a tournament since May. Svitolina also continued to underperform at the Majors, reaching only one quarterfinal. She went just 2-3 on the Asian swing of the tour leading into this tournament, so she arrived in Singapore with very little momentum. But Elina stepped up to the occasion this week, going 4-0 and winning three matches in a deciding third set. Now she’ll play for the biggest title of her life, as she looks to take her career to the next level.
Sloane Stephens vs. Elina Svitolina
Both of these players are strong performers in tournament finals. Stephens is 6-2 in her career at this stage. However, she’s lost her last two tournament finals, though both of those were against world No.1 Simona Halep. Svitolina is 12-2 at this stage, and has won her last eight tournament finals. While she’s never won a title of this magnitude, six of her last eight titles came at Premier or Premier 5 events, which are significant tournaments to be sure.
These two split matches played in 2014, with their only other meeting coming early this year on Montreal, when Stephens defeated Svitolina in a straight-set semifinal. Sloane got off to a terrible start against Karolina Pliskova yesterday, losing the first eight games of the match. But she’ll take confidence from the way she fought back to win, and will likely play more freely on Sunday knowing she escaped near-elimination. Svitolina is obviously fully comfortable in finals, but she’ll surely feel the pressure of this occasion on Sunday. And she was thoroughly pushed by Kiki Bertens yesterday, in a longer and much more competitive semifinal. Stephens does just about everything a little better than Svitolina when playing her best, and has won both of their previous hard court matches in straight sets. With all this in mind, I’m picking Sloane to raise the Billie Jean King trophy on Sunday.
Head-to-head record – Svitolina leads 2-1
| Year | Name | Round | Surface | Winning Player | Losing Player | Score |
| 2018 | Canadian Masters | SF | Hard | Sloane Stephens | Elina Svitolina | 6-3 6-3 |
| 2014 | Charleston | R32 | Clay | Elina Svitolina | Sloane Stephens | 6-4 6-4 |
| 2014 | Australian Open | R32 | Hard | Sloane Stephens | Elina Svitolina | 7-5 6-4 |
