The five players in tennis history to have won the WTA Finals but not a Grand Slam title

This has seen the likes of Martina Navratilova and Serena Williams win the title, and more recently Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff and Elena Rybakina have triumphed at the event.

All five of these players have also won multiple Grand Slam titles, but five WTA Finals champions have not won a single major.

German WTA player Sylvia Hanika stunned Navratilova in the final of the 1982 WTA Finals to win the title. This made Hanika the first ever player to win the year-end tournament without a major title to their name. Hanika had come close to winning a Grand Slam, having reached the final of Roland Garros in 1981, but she never reached another major semi-final.

It was 43 years until the next WTA Finals champion without a Grand Slam title, as Agnieszka Radwanska won the 2015 title in Singapore. Radwanska did reach the Wimbledon final in 2012, but was ultimately beaten in that final by Serena Williams and retired without a major title.

The following year, the WTA Finals crowned another player who had never won a Grand Slam title, as Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova won the title after beating Angelique Kerber in the final. Cibulkova also reached one Grand Slam final in her career, but was never able to get her hands on a title.

Singapore played host to three Grand Slam titleless players winning the WTA Finals, with Elina Svitolina becoming the third in 2018. Svitolina, who has reached four Grand Slam semi-finals in her career, is the only active player able to remove herself from this list. Svitolina has also qualified for this year’s WTA Finals, meaning that she can become the first player to win multiple titles at this event without winning a major.

The most recent player to join this list is Caroline Garcia, who won the WTA Finals in 2022 after beating Aryna Sabalenka in the final. Garcia had enjoyed arguably the best season of her career in 2022, which included reaching the US Open semi-finals, and she capped it off with a victory at the WTA Finals in Fort Worth, Texas. However, Garcia was never able to win a Grand Slam before she retired in 2025.

Players who have won the most WTA Finals titles in history

The common theme with all the WTA Finals champions who have never won a Grand Slam title is that they have all won just one title at the event.

While this is something to be celebrated, some other players have won multiple WTA Finals titles. This includes record-breaker Navratilova, who has won a colossal eight titles at the event, having also made a record 21 appearances at the tournament.

The closest two players to Navratilova in terms of WTA Finals titles are Steffi Graf and Serena Williams, both of whom won five WTA Finals titles. The last 10 editions of the WTA Finals have all had first-time champions, with Williams being the last player to defend the title after winning her third consecutive title at the event in 2014.

Some of the other players who have won multiple WTA Finals titles are Chris Evert, Monica Seles and Kim Clijsters.

This year’s WTA Finals lineup is confirmed, with world number one and defending champion Rybakina, Sabalenka, Mirra Andreeva, Jessica Pegula, Gauff, Svitolina, Karolina Muchova and Linda Noskova all bidding for the title.

Pegula and Muchova are the only two players who can join this list as players without a Grand Slam title, with this year’s WTA Finals taking place in Indian Wells between November 8 to 15.

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