The WTA Fan Favourite award is the ultimate honour for players as fans vote for the player they love the most and world no.4 Simona Halep was given this honour for the third consecutive year, facing tough competition from youngster Iga Swiatek.
The former world no.1 won the award for the third consecutive year after a season that saw fans love her on and off-court. Halep, most notably, won the title at Wimbledon this year defeating multiple Grand Slam champion Serena Williams in straight sets in the final.
In an effort to enable more children to play tennis, the Romanian also donated a large sum of money to the project “Tennis in your school”.
Also Read:
Her foundation, the Simona Halep Foundation works in three areas: sports, health and education. The foundation supports multiple sports events and is involved in a campaign to save premature babies as well as to bring about a change in the Romanian education system to be more holistic and not theoretical.
Second in running for the WTA Fan Favourite award was 18-year-old Swiatek. Swiatek played Halep at the French Open this year upon reaching the second week of a Grand Slam for the first time. She also broke the Top 100 for the first time in her career on playing her first finals at the Lugano Open in Switzerland.
[the_ad id=”14059″]
At such a young age, Swiatek reached a career-high ranking of 49 this year and now holds a victory over former world no.1 Caroline Wozniacki who she defeated at the Rogers Cup in Toronto after playing from a set down.
Incredibly close from dethroning the current fan favourite, Swiatek had a rather slow start in the polls but towards the end rose high enough to almost beat the three time winner.
Having played the last matches of her season at the US Open in August, Swiatek ended the year ranked at 60. This number gets more impressive as Swiatek started the year at the Auckland Open ranked at 186. It is no wonder that she is a strong contender of this award having achieved such impressive feats at such a young age.
Ahead of the new year, Swiatek’s rapid rise trough the ranks points to a bright future for the young Pole.
Be the first to comment