Top 5 WTA Players of 2022, No. 2: Caroline Garcia

WATCH: Caroline Garcia's press conference after winning the 2022 WTA Finals

Memorable Moment: Garcia didn’t just announce her return in Cincinnati by winning the WTA 1000 as a qualifier, she defeated three Top 10 players in the process.

Missed Opportunity: Gassed from a 13-match winning streak, Garcia—playing her first Grand Slam semifinal at the US Open—couldn’t keep things competitive in a straight-sets loss to Ons Jabeur.

2023 Projection: With her game flowing again and her confidence levels flying high, Garcia is poised for a long Top 10 stay and another shot at Grand Slam glory.

For tennis fans, there’s something magical about watching a young player rocket up the rankings (think: Carlos Alcaraz), or seeing an unheralded challenger make an unexpected breakthrough (Emma Raducanu) or witnessing a top-ranked player at the peak of her powers (Iga Swiatek).

But there’s also something just as rich and satisfying about the Caroline Garcias of the world. The ones who brushed up against greatness before they were ready for it, and then had to fight their way back to that place with odds and expectations stacked against them. The ones whose do-or-die battles happen on Court 5, not Center Court—but compete just as fiercely on any stage, because they’re no longer taking anything for granted.

"I learned to let go,” wrote the world No. 4, reflecting on her 2022 season. It was a fitting summary, as across 11 months Garcia would lay old expectations to rest, let go of her own beliefs about what her results should or shouldn’t be, and embrace the grind of the comeback trail.

Having started the year at No. 74 and on barely anyone’s tennis radar, Garcia finished inside the WTA Top 5—her highest ranking in four years—after a career-redefining effort.

Sidelined by an ankle injury that had left her off the court for two months, the 29-year-old essentially had to start from scratch. For a player that had been tipped for greatness by Andy Murray as a teenager in 2011, it marked the first time in a while that she had been able to swing freely without the pressure of never quite living up to his prediction.

"This injury allowed me to play more liberated," Garcia would later write. "I learned to let go, I learned to accept my mistakes, the unexpected, to delegate, to trust myself, to follow my instincts...

"By building day by day, by staying positive, by having confidence, with simple goals in mind—to be healthy, to do my best day by day, to live in the present moment, to play my game to the fullest—I ended up living the best season of my career!"

For the first half of the season, her unglamorous work went relatively unnoticed as little by little, at qualies and WTA 250 events, the Lyon native began to chip away at her ranking. That is, until June, when her renaissance abruptly kicked into high gear.

And suddenly, it was hard not to notice the threat Garcia posed in every draw.

The Frenchwoman racked up 39 match wins from the start of June until the end of the year, finishing with a 46-20 record on the season. She won four singles titles across multiple surfaces during that time—one on grass (Bad Homburg) and clay (Warsaw), and two on hard courts (Cincinnati, WTA Finals)—and also teamed up with Kristina Mladenovic to lift her second Roland Garros doubles trophy in May.

In Bad Homburg, Garcia returned to the WTA winners’ circle for the first time since 2019, and in Warsaw, she sent a message by toppling world No. 1 Iga Swiatek—her first win over a top-ranked player in 10 attempts—with a 6-1, 1-6, 6-4 win on home soil.

But it was in Cincinnati, at the Western & Southern Open, where Garcia would finally have the world sitting up and taking notice again.

“The Cincinnati tournament proved to me that I was able to play and beat the best players in the world and do it day after day,” Garcia said in an interview. “It was a great experience. The week in Cincinnati really helped me get some confidence in my fitness, my level of tennis, and my game style."

Garcia’s signature quick-strike tennis was on full display in Cincinnati, leading her past the likes of No. 3 Maria Sakkari, No. 8 Jessica Pegula and No. 7 Aryna Sabalenka on her way to the title, which she clinched with a victory over Petra Kvitova in the final.

The Frenchwoman proved her adaptable, well-rounded game for all surfaces still packed a punch. She frequently confounded her opponents with her mix of power and movement, like returning serve from well inside the baseline and moving into the court to take her groundstrokes on the rise, robbing her opponents of time.

Not to mention, few players seemed to work out how to neutralize her big serve: Garcia was not only the WTA’s ace leader, with 394 in 63 matches, she also won 80 percent of the service games she played all season.

The result propelled her back inside the WTA Top 20, and she segued it into a 13-match winning streak by going on to reach her first Grand Slam semifinal at the US Open. The 29-year-old looked gassed in her 6-1, 6-3 rout at the hands of Ons Jabeur, but rather than let the result rattle her, Garcia simply let it go and got back to work, navigating the post-US Open blues.

After booking her first trip to the WTA Finals since 2017, she was dealt another curveball. With less than a week to go before the tournament, her coach Bertrand Perret tendered his immediate resignation—leaving her to manage the season-ending event on her own.

And managed she did, embracing the challenge as well as delightfully leaning into the Texan atmosphere, as she took out Maria Sakkari and Sabalenka in the semifinals and final to clinch the biggest title of her career.

But such is the ‘new’ Garcia that even amid celebrations in Fort Worth, she wasn’t willing to rest on her laurels. After all, she’s been in positions like this before, having first reached her career-high world No. 4 ranking in 2018.

By building day by day, by staying positive, by having confidence, with simple goals in mind... I ended up living the best season of my career! Caroline Garcia

Back then, it took a similarly monumental effort across the second half of the season to win back-to-back WTA 1000 titles in Wuhan and Beijing and qualify for the WTA Finals. At 24 years old, that result launched Garcia into Top 10 for the first time—but when those points eventually came off, she wouldn’t return there for nearly four years as pressure, inconsistency and injuries took their toll.

This time around, Garcia is already bracing for an inevitable letdown—and plotting her next move, as she targets week-in, week-out consistency.

“Obviously, I've done good in the past, I was Top 4, but the year afterward was kind of tough,” she acknowledged. “It was a good lesson for me and I want to be able to manage that part better. I think I grew a lot in these five years.

“We're still going to make mistakes here and there, but we try and do as little as we can and learn really quickly. But I really want to be focused on the future, enjoy the present, and see what I can improve in my game, my fitness, my mental capacity.”