It all comes down to this. The championships of the WTA Finals Riyadh are here to put a bow on the Hologic WTA Tour’s crown-jewel event and the 2025 season.<\/p>\n
Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina, both unbeaten and seeking their first WTA Finals title, take center stage as they vie for the Billie Jean King Trophy. In doubles, Veronika Kudermetova and Elise Mertens square off against Timea Babos and Luisa Stefani with the Martina Navratilova Trophy on the line.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The doubles final begins the slate at 4:00 p.m. local time, and the singles final will begin at 7:00 p.m. The respective trophy presentations will be held immediately after each match.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Below is a comprehensive breakdown of the two finals scheduled for Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The championship matches<\/p>\n
Note: All matches are local time.<\/p>\n
Prize money:\u00a0Because the singles finalists are coming into this match undefeated, the champion will take home $5.23 million, the largest payout in women’s sports history.<\/p>\n
The doubles finalists each lost in the round-robin stage, so the champions will make $1.06 million. (An undefeated team would have won $1.13 million.)<\/p>\n
Veronika Kudermetova and Elise Mertens (4) vs. Timea Babos and Luisa Stefani (7) — 4:00 p.m.<\/p>\n
The Case for Kudermetova-Mertens: After knocking out top seeded Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in their final round robin match, Kudermetova and Mertens took down No. 2 Siniakova and Townsend — and last year’s runner-up — to reach the final. Since falling in their group stage opener, they\u2019ve won three straight matches.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Their one meeting against Babos-Stefani came in the first round of the Internazionali BNL d\u2019Italia. Kudermetova-Mertens cruised to a 6-4, 6-2 win, kickstarting their run to the final.<\/p>\n
Like Babos, Kudermetova and Mertens are also previous champions of the crown-jewel event. Three years ago, the duo lifted the trophy in Fort Worth, Texas in an undefeated run to the title.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Road to the Final:
\u2022 1. Loss to Hsieh-Ostapenko 6-1, 5-7, [5-10]
\u2022 2. Win over Muhammad-Schuurs 6-4, 6-7 (6), [10-6]
\u2022 3. Win over Errani-Paolini 6-3, 6-3
\u2022 SF: Win over Siniakova-Townsend 4-6, 7-6 (6), [10-6]
\u2022 Accrued prize money: $543,000<\/p>\n
The Case for Babos-Stefani: Since falling in their group stage opener, Babos-Stefani have been on a tear, winning three straight matches. In the semifinals they took down the previously undefeated Hsieh Su-Wei and Jelena Ostapenko, coming back from a break down in each set and needing three match points to secure the victory.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Babos-Stefani seek to avenge that defeat in Rome in May, but the loss propelled a title run in Strasbourg the following tournament. They defeated Mertens in Stuttgart, though the Belgian was competing with Chan Hao-ching.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For Babos, this would mark the Hungarian\u2019s fourth WTA Finals doubles title and first since capturing three straight from 2017-2019. Stefani, in her maiden WTA Finals appearance, is the first Brazilian to reach the final in the tournament’s history. A win on Saturday would secure their fifth title of the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Road to the Final:
\u2022 1. Loss to Siniakova-Townsend 6-2, 3-6, [10-6]
\u2022 2. Win over Andreeva-Shnaider 7-5, 2-6, [10-7]
\u2022 3. Win over Dabrowski-Routliffe 2-6, 7-5, [10-5]
\u2022 SF: Win over Hsieh-Ostapenko 6-4, 7-6 (5)
\u2022 Accrued prize money: $543,000<\/p>\n
Aryna Sabalenka (1) vs. Elena Rybakina (6) — 7:00 p.m.<\/p>\n
Head to Head: Sabalenka leads 8-5<\/p>\n
The Case for Sabalenka: The World No. 1 is just one win away from her first WTA Finals title in her fifth appearance at the event.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A perfect 4-0 thus far in Riyadh, she\u2019s earned her spot in Saturday\u2019s final after a 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 semifinal thriller against Anisimova, and returns to the final for the first time since 2022. She also ended Anisimova\u2019s 13-match win streak in three-set matches.<\/p>\n
Standing between Sabalenka and that coveted title is Rybakina, who Sabalenka defeated twice in 2025. She most recently knocked out Rybakina in the quarterfinals in Wuhan, winning 6-3, 6-3 win. She also won in the quarterfinals in Berlin back in June.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sabalenka, who won the US Open and reached the Australian Open and Roland Garros finals, is the first player to reach the WTA Finals championship and three Grand Slam singles finals in the same season since Angelique Kerber in 2016. She also defeated each of this year\u2019s Grand Slam champions at least once in 2025.<\/p>\n
Road to the Final:
\u2022 1. Win over Paolini 6-3, 6-1
\u2022 2. Win over Pegula 6-4, 2-6, 6-3
\u2022 3. Win over Gauff 7-6 (5), 6-2
\u2022 SF: Win over Anisimova 6-3, 3-6, 6-3
\u2022 Accrued prize money: $2.695 million<\/p>\n
The Case for Rybakina: The 26-year-old is one win away from a perfect 5-0 campaign in Riyadh and closing 2025 on an 11-match winning streak. This would also be her first WTA Finals title.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pegula certainly tested Rybakina in the semifinals, taking the first set in a two-hour, five-minute thriller. But Rybakina bounced back, and her 15 total aces, five break points and 36 winners helped her overcome 67 unforced errors. Rybakina’s game has been the most complete in Riyadh from the serve to the return to the ability to cover the court, and that will need to be on full display in the final.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rybakina\u2019s final test is the world\u2019s best in Sabalenka. Though she trails the head to head, she did defeat Sabalenka in Cincinnati in August. She also beat Sabalenka 6-4, 3-6, 6-1 in the group stage in Riyadh last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The former Wimbledon champion is seeking her 45th hard-court win of 2025, the most of any player on tour.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Road to the Final:
\u2022 1. Win over Anisimova 6-3, 6-1
\u2022 2. Win over Swiatek 3-6, 6-1, 6-0
\u2022 3. Win over Alexandrova (playing as an alternate after Keys withdrew) 6-4, 6-4
\u2022 SF: Win over Pegula 4-6, 6-4, 6-3
\u2022 Accrued prize money: $2.695 million<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It all comes down to this. The championships of the WTA Finals Riyadh are here to put a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593,5452],"class_list":{"0":"post-269435","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis","12":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}