IGA SWIATEK WILL FINISH THE YEAR AT NO. 1 AFTER WINNING THE WTA FINALS

By beating Sabalenka No. 1 and No. 4 Elena Rybakina in the group stage, eliminating her doubles partner, No. 3 Coco Gauff, in the semifinals and taking on No. 2 Swiatek, Pegula became the first woman...

Right after relinquishing the No. 1 ranking two months ago, Iga Swiatek couldn't help but worry about trying to regain it. “It's hard not to think about stuff like that,” she explained. And then Swiatek realized it was better to set that sort of thing aside and, instead, simply focus on playing her best tennis — and her best is better than anyone else's at the moment. Swiatek earned her first WTA Finals title and clinched the year-end No. 1 ranking by overwhelming Jessica Pegula 6-1, 6-0 on Monday in the latest in a series of dominant performances.

“Today was like a highlight of this mental (approach) — just being narrow with your head, only thinking about the right stuff,” said Swiatek, a 22-year-old from Poland who is the youngest WTA Finals champion since Petra Kvitova was 21 in 2011.

Swiatek went 5-0 at the tour’s season-closing championship, winning all 10 sets she played and ceding a total of just 20 games. That's the fewest by the winner at the event for the top eight women in tennis since the round-robin format returned in 2003.