15 incredible things Caroline Garcia achieved by winning the 2022 WTA Finals
Among them, she’s now won 10 of her last 11 finals—and she’s now the highest-earning Frenchwoman in WTA history.
From finals streaks to aces to prize money milestones, Caroline Garcia unlocked all kinds of achievements during her run to the title at the WTA Finals in Forth Worth, Texas this year.
Here are just 15 of those achievements:
She captured the biggest title of her career. Before this, the Frenchwoman's biggest titles were three WTA 1000s, all on hard courts, at Wuhan and Beijing in 2017 and at Cincinnati this year.
It’s the biggest title any French player has won in nine years, woman or man. The last time a French player won a Grand Slam or a season-ending championships (WTA Finals or ATP Finals) was at Wimbledon in 2013, where Marion Bartoli lifted the women's title.
She was the second Frenchwoman ever to win the WTA Finals. Amelie Mauresmo was the first Frenchwoman to do it in 2005, and she went on to win two of the first three Grand Slams of 2006…
She was actually two points away from being out of the tournament during the round robin. Her last round robin match against Daria Kasatkina was win-or-go-home, the winner advancing to the semis and the loser getting eliminated—and Garcia not only rallied from a set down, but was also two points from losing serving at 4-5, 30-all in the third set, but she prevailed, 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 (5).
Garcia’s comeback victory against Kasatkina was even more impressive given the Russian had been an undefeated 28-0 this year after winning the first set going into that match.
She completed her career set of wins over every rank in the Top 10. Coming into the tournament she already had wins over a No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, No. 4, No. 6, No. 7, No. 8, No. 9 and No. 10—she completed her collection with a 6-3, 6-2 win over No. 5 Maria Sakkari in the semis.
Her 7-6 (4), 6-4 victory over Sabalenka in the final was the 25th Top 10 win of her career. She recorded her 22nd through 25th Top 10 wins in Texas, defeating No. 4 Coco Gauff and No. 8 Kasatkina in round robin play, No. 5 Sakkari in the semis and No. 7 Sabalenka in the final.
She became the highest-earning Frenchwoman in WTA history. With her $1,570,000 winner’s cheque, Garcia is now up to $15,064,141 in career prize money, surpassing Mauresmo’s $15,022,476.
She’s now won her last five WTA finals in a row, and 10 of her last 11. After losing her first three finals, Garcia has gone 10-1 since the start of 2016—and she had match point in the one she lost in that time.
GARCIA IN WTA FINALS: 10-4
- l. to Jankovic in 2014 Bogota F, 6-3, 6-4
- l. to Bacsinszky in 2015 Acapulco F, 6-3, 6-0
- l. to Bacsinszky in 2015 Monterrey F, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4
- d. Lucic-Baroni in 2016 Strasbourg F, 6-4, 6-1
- d. Sevastova in 2016 Mallorca F, 6-3, 6-4
- d. Barty in 2017 Wuhan F, 6-7 (3), 7-6 (4), 6-2
- d. Halep in 2017 Beijing F, 6-4, 7-6 (3)
- d. Pliskova in 2018 Tianjin F, 7-6 (7), 6-3
- l. to Yastremska in 2019 Strasbourg F, 6-4, 5-7, 7-6 (3) [held 1mp]
- d. Vekic in 2019 Nottingham F, 2-6, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (4)
- d. Andreescu in 2022 Bad Homburg F, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-4
- d. Bogdan in 2022 Warsaw F, 6-4, 6-1
- d. Kvitova in 2022 Cincinnati F, 6-2, 6-4
- d. Sabalenka in 2022 WTA Finals F, 7-6 (4), 6-4
She’ll now finish the year as the WTA’s ace leader with 394 aces. She came into the WTA Finals in second place for the year with 369 aces, right behind Elena Rybakina’s 370—but 25 aces for the tournament, including 11 in the final, helped her soar past the Kazakh.
She won 34 of her last 43 tour-level matches of the year. Garcia actually had a losing record of 9-11 in her first 11 tournaments of the year, but she went 34-9 in her last 12 tournaments of the year.
She’ll finish the year back at her career-high ranking of No. 4, having been No. 75 as recently as June. She went into Bad Homburg, the week before Wimbledon, at No. 75—but that’s when the 34-9 run began, and now, after winning the WTA Finals, she moves up from No. 6 to No. 4, her previous career-high ranking from 2018.
And she has barely any points to defend until next June. Of the 4,375 points on her ranking right now, she earned less than 500 of them between January and June this year—with so much room to add points in the first half of 2023, could Andy Murray’s famous tweet from Roland Garros in 2011 become true?
Having already been the only woman this year to win WTA titles on all three surfaces, she now adds a fourth surface (kind of). She already won on grass (Bad Homburg), clay (Warsaw) and outdoor hard courts (Cincinnati), and the WTA Finals was on indoor hard.
She’s just the fourth woman to win the WTA Finals after her 29th birthday. The first three were Martina Navratilova in November 1986 (age 30), Jana Novotna in 1997 (age 29) and Serena Williams three times in 2012 (age 31), 2013 (age 32) and 2014 (age 33).
She became the 25th different champion in 51 editions of the WTA Finals. And the eighth different winner in the last eight editions of the event, a stretch that began in 2014 with Serena Williams’ fifth and last title here, followed by Agnieszka Radwanska in 2015, Dominika Cibulkova in 2016, Caroline Wozniacki in 2017, Elina Svitolina in 2018, Ashleigh Barty in 2019 and Garbine Muguruza in 2021.