WTA Finals

Hopefully some of you have followed in those outright picks.

As I said, we're looking ahead to the Tour Championships as well next week.

And I've got my eye on Linda Noshkova there, you know.

And I'm looking at her now already.

So they're the kind of prices that we'll be hoping for as well.

Before we sign off, remember we will be back on Monday for first round matches, our final first round matches show and these two tournaments that will be on Monday over here in Chennai and obviously in Hong Kong.

And we'll be back next week to preview the Tour Championships, the final...

The tournament of 2026 is not the regular tournament, but obviously the best eight in the world will be doing battle in Indian Wells, and myself and Tim will be back to cover that.

Never getting to the second week, I think, or never getting beyond the fourth round at the US Open until this year.

and yet now it feels like the motivation is there and as a result the consistency is there too and there is one other thing though that is good news for leila it sounds really bad doesn't it until now but there is one thing elena despite that incredible motivation she might, this is probably the least motivated she could probably be for a tournament or a match all year, with one eye on that WTA finals coming up in Indian Wells in a couple of weeks.

We saw exactly this last year as well, when she finally sealed that spot at the expense of Mira Andrava, and she pulls out, doesn't she, I think at the semi-final stage of perhaps this exact same tournament, or certainly one of these Asian Swim tournaments.

So I think if you're going to catch Elena...

Yeah, it's a situation of getting too far ahead of yourself.

But yeah, it's a good synopsis, John.

Kind of think about the conversations we were having last year this time, having to play a few extra tournaments just to get in to the WTA finals.

And that's where you think about the motivation.

So a nice little strange late run of the tennis season here.

And when I mean late, I mean at the very end, because we've got the ATP finals and the WTA finals coming up as well.

Okay, let's go to the National Basketball Association.

Of course, you are the host of Hardwood Handicappers.

That's fair enough.

I think it's fair.

Are you going to be betting the ATP or WTA finals? You will be betting through, right? Yes, I would imagine.

I

we will be giving away some halloween dampeners we will have a little spooky sale for sure and you know what's great here is on saturday this year it actually falls on halloween the kids will be trick-or-treating so we will be giving out candy and hopefully giving out some deals give out some tennis balls i've given some tennis balls before and people say i'd rather have the candy and i'm saying tennis ball is a good

thing to keep for life i like it bg tennis nation you've always got something good going on over there let's tease the show rabakina continues her dominance wins and ningbo that was her fourth title this year 15th title overall also we're going to have a wta finals preview as all the spots are set the atp race update that is in the mist right now all these players are trying to get those last points here in basel vienna and then paris next week we'll have a one-on-one with learner tn that guy is just so special Also, we're going to speak about and have a little bit of a Halloween costume horror story between BG and I, what we've seen on the tour.

But BG, we cannot bury the lead.

Magnus Norman seems to be now joining the Yannick Center camp as the second coach to go along with Simone Bagnosi because Darren Cahill is going to be retiring.

Do you think Iga Sviatek being number nine, will she show up? or Marta Kosciak, Iva Jovic? Because also, you never know.

I mean, with Svitolina, you never know some family issues that are going on, if she's going to play.

Kind of what are you looking at storyline for the WTA finals?

OK, zero chance Iga will be there.

By her own admission, one of the toughest of her career.

And it means no WTA finals for the first time in six years for the pole.

She says there's been a lot of challenges, changes and lessons along the way this year.

I'm especially proud of the work we've done the second half of the year and the progress that came with it.

And Calvin, I'm going to come to you on Katerina Sinyakova winning her first singles title in nearly three years, because it alerted me to a remarkable stat.

Now, she is probably the best combined tennis player, if that makes any sense, maybe barring Coco Goff, I suppose.

But anyway, Katerina Sinyakova nearly qualified for WTA finals twice this year because she is qualified with Taylor Townsend as the number two pair and her and Zhang Shui are 14th in the race, which is absolutely unbelievable.

Yeah, I mean...

I mean, the way she's playing now, once again, she's playing just kind of like last year.

She won Ningbo leading into the WTA finals, and so she's the favorite.

I mean, she's playing some incredible tennis.

She's number one in the world.