The era of parity in Women’s tennis

In recent years, the WTA Tour has developed a reputation for offering a more competitive brand of tennis than the men’s game. That is perhaps unsurprising. Over the last two decades the men’s tour has seen the triarchy of Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, and Roger Federer dominate and then give way to the current duopoly of Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz (all before Djokovic has even retired). Serena Williams was alone atop the mountaintop for awhile, but otherwise the WTA Tour has not seen a similar dynasty emerge.

On the contrary, in recent times it seems like the parity on the WTA Tour has gone up to a level where you never know which player might win any given match. That has been particularly apparent at this year’s WTA Finals where the group stage unfolded in an unpredictable manner.