World number 1 Iga Swiatek lured young American Coco Gauff to her squad for the WTA season finale to be held in the United States.
Swiatek, the 21-year-old from Poland, is seeded in Tracy Austin’s group which will also include Caroline Garcia and Daria Kasatkina.
Ons Jabeur, Jessica Pegula, Maria Sakkari and Aryna Sabalenka will compete for the Nancy Richey Group.
The singles and doubles fields have both been divided into two groups of four for the Italian round of the WTA finals, which will be played on an indoor hard court.
The first two of each group will access the semifinals.
In the doubles, Rosie Casals’ group is made up of Pegula and Gauff, Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova, Xu Yifan and Yang Zhaoxuan, and Desire Krawczyk and Demi Schuurs.
The Pam Shriver group is made up of Gabriela Dabrowski and Giuliana Olmos, Veronika Kudermetova and Elise Mertens, Lyudmyla Kichenok and Jelena Ostapenko, and Anna Danilina and Beatriz Haddad Maia.
Pegula and Gauff are the first women’s singles and doubles pair to enter the WTA Finals since Serena and Venus Williams did so in 2009.
The n. 3 Pegula and n. 4 Gauff are also the first two Americans to enter the top four after the Williams sisters in 2010.
Jabeur, Pegula, Gauff and Kasatkina participate in the event for the first time.
Since 2000, only twice as many WTA Finals entrants have made their singles debut: in 2001, five women entered the field for the first time, and last year there were six.
The WTA Finals return to the United States for the first time since 2005 after the tour moved it out of China for the second consecutive year.
The 2021 WTA Finals were originally scheduled in Shenzhen, China, but have been moved to Guadalajara, Mexico due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Then, late last year, the tour said it would have no tournaments in China in 2022 due to safety concerns from Peng Shuai, a Grand Slam doubles champion who accused a former government official of this. country of sexual assault.