Day 1 of the WTA Finals in Riyadh featured the Serena Williams Group in singles and the Martina Navratilova Group in doubles.
On Sunday the year-end event shifts gears to the Stefanie Graf Group and the Liezel Huber Group.
WTA
Defending champion Coco Gauff and World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka will play their opening matches, and Jasmine Paolini starts her singles campaign after playing her first doubles match on Saturday with Sara Errani.
Below is the order of the play, match times and breakdowns of the four matches on the docket.
The Matches
Note: All matches are local time.
Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe (3) vs. Mirra Andreeva and Diana Shnaider (5) – 3 p.m.
Dabrowski and Routliffe had a brilliant North American hard-court swing, winning Cincinnati and then the US Open. But in their lone match against Andreeva and Shnaider this season, on clay in Rome, they came up short. The quarterfinal match was an epic, with Andreeva and Shnaider taking the third set 11-9.
Aryna Sabalenka (1) vs. Jasmine Paolini (8) – Not before 5 p.m.
Head to Head: Sabalenka leads 5-2
The Case for Sabalenka: Do we really need to make one? She’s two months removed from a second straight US Open title, is No. 1 in the world (and has been for a year) and is likely the best hard-court player on tour. She’s also won her past four matches against Paolini, one of which was a 6-3, 7-5 win at this tournament a year ago.
They’ve played each other in two semifinals this year, in Miami and then in Stuttgart, and Sabalenka took both in straights. In fact, Paolini hasn’t taken a set off Sabalenka since Indian Wells in 2022, which is the last time she beat her.
The Case for Paolini: If we’ve learned anything about Paolini in the past two years, it’s not to doubt her.
Case in point: Three weeks ago in Wuhan, Paolini entered her quarterfinal match having never beaten Iga Swiatek in six tries — and taking just one set. Playing as the clear underdog, she dominated from start to finish, dropping just three games in 65 minutes.
Paolini can beat anyone.
Coco Gauff (3) vs. Jessica Pegula (5) – Not before 6:30 p.m.
Head to Head: Pegula leads 4-3
The Case for Gauff: She’s the defending champion in Riyadh, she generally plays her best at this late stage of the season and she’s fresh off her third WTA 1000 title in Wuhan.
In that final she beat Pegula, her old friend and former doubles partner, 6-4, 7-5.
They met in Riyadh a year ago, in the group stage, and Gauff also won that one in straights. These two share a close bond, and they know each other’s games intimately well. Gauff knows what she needs to do to win.
The Case for Pegula: The same can be said for Pegula! The 31-year-old knows Gauff’s game backwards and forwards, and clearly has a strategy in place to pull off the upset. Whether she’s able to execute it is a different story.
Pegula has been red hot, though, going 13-3 since the start of the US Open and reaching the semifinals or better in her last three tournaments (one Slam and two WTA 1000s). She also has the edge in the career head to head, though three of those wins came before 2024.
Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend (2) vs. Timea Babos and Luisa Stefani (7)
World No. 1 Siniakova’s accolades speak for themselves: 32 career titles, 10 Grand Slams and a WTA Finals title in 2021. Townsend has built a hell of a resume in her own right, winning 11 titles with seven different partners.
Siniakova and Townsend reached the finals in Riyadh a year ago after winning Wimbledon, and they followed that up with titles in Melbourne and Dubai in 2025.
This will be their third match this year against Babos and Stefani. They beat them in three sets in the third round of Roland Garros, and a month later beat them again in the Wimbledon quarterfinals.
