After year-end No. 1 finish, Aryna Sabalenka voted 2024 WTA Player of the Year

Aryna Sabalenka has been voted the WTA's Player of the Year for the first time, following a season in which she won two Grand Slam titles and finishing 2024 at No. 1 in the rankings.

Sabalenka led a Player of the Year ballot that also included Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff, Jasmine Paolini and Zheng Qinwen, but the 26-year-old won a vote by tennis media to finish on top after posting a 56-14 record, reaching seven finals across 2024 and winning four titles, defending her Australian Open title, lifting her first US Open trophy, and taking home two WTA 1000 events in Cincinnati and Wuhan.

Read more: **TENNIS.com's 2024 WTA Player of the Year Countdown, No. 1: Aryna Sabalenka**

She returned to world No. 1 for a second time in October, taking the ranking from Swiatek, and ended the season in the top spot following her fourth consecutive appearance at the WTA Finals.

Also honored by a media vote were the doubles team of Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini, Paula Badosa, Emma Navarro, and Lulu Sun. Badosa was named the Comeback Player of the Year, Navarro the Most Improved Player of the Year, and Sun the Newcomer of the Year.

Though she wasn't nominated for Most Improved Player in a season that saw her skyrocket from outside the Top 30 in singls to world No. 4, and reach two major finals at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, Paolini was rewarded for her successes alongside Errani. The two Italians won the gold medal in doubles at the Paris Olympics and helped their country win the Billie Jean King Cup, a first since 2013. They also reached the Roland Garros doubles final together.

In other individual award winners, Badosa sat out the second half of last season with a career-threatening back injury but the 27-year-old Spaniard returned to No. 12 in the rankings with a resurgent year in 2024, where she won a WTA 500 in Washington, D.C. and reached the US Open quarterfinals before losing to Navarro. The American, a former University of Virginia standout and NCAA singles champion, reached the Wimbledon quarterfinals and US Open semifinals amidst a breakthrough season that also saw her win her first title and crack the Top 10 in the rankings.

Sun went from outside the Top 200 in the rankings to a career-best No. 39, highlighted by a quarterfinal showing as a qualifier at Wimbledon in July and a runner-up finish at the Monterrey in August. The 23-year-old was the first woman representing New Zealand to reach the Wimbledon quarterfinals in the Open Era, where she upset Zheng and 2021 US Open winner Emma Raducanu.