Aryna Sabalenka won her second consecutive WTA Tour Player of the Year award on Monday, receiving almost 80% of the votes from a media panel after winning the US Open, reaching the finals of two other Grand Slam tournaments and finishing the season at No. 1 in the rankings.
Sabalenka joined Serena Williams and Iga Swiatek as consecutive winners of the honor over the past 25 years.
Sabalenka, a 27-year-old from Belarus, led women’s tennis in match wins (63-12), titles (four) and finals (nine) in 2025 and set a tour record by earning $15 million in prize money. She was number 1 all year.
At the majors, Sabalenka was runner-up to Madison Keys at the Australian Open in January and to Coco Gauff at the French Open in June, reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon in July before losing to Amanda Anisimova and collected her fourth career Grand Slam trophy with a successful title defense at the US Open in September, beating Anisimova in the final.
Anisimova was selected Most Improved Player after reaching her first two Grand Slam finals at the All England Club – where she finished second to Swiatek – and Flushing Meadows. She reached three other finals, including claiming WTA 1000 titles in Doha and Beijing.
The 24-year-old from the United States ended 2024 at number 36 in the rankings and rose all the way to number 4 after her top-10 debut at the end of this season. Anisimova was also nominated as Player of the Year.
This season marked quite the climb for Anisimova, who took time off in 2023 and said she had been “struggling with my mental health” for almost a year.
Other award winners on Monday included Vicky Mboko as Newcomer of the Year, Belinda Bencic as Comeback Player of the Year, and Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend as Doubles Team of the Year.
Mboko, a 19-year-old from Canada, increased her ranking from outside the top 300 to inside the top 20 with a season that included a WTA 1000 trophy in Montreal by defeating four Grand Slam singles champions.
Bencic spent more than a year away from the tour when she had her first child, then won two titles in 2025 and reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon for the first time – her first appearance in the last four of a major since 2019.
Siniakova and Townsend won the Australian Open and finished second at the US Open.
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