To qualify for the finals, players must participate in at least eight WTA 1000/500 events, unless exempt due to long-term injury.

WTA singles points are based on a player’s best 18 tournament results as of the Monday after Week 43 of the tennis season.

The top seven players in the ‘race’ to the finals automatically qualify for the year-end championships, while the eighth spot then goes to the highest-ranked Grand Slam winner of the current year, who has not already qualified.

With the ‘race’ over this year, the eight players competing at the finals have been confirmed.

WTA Finals line-up confirmed after Emma Navarro withdraws from Ningbo Open

Emma Navarro’s withdrawal from the Ningbo Open through illness hands Qinwen Zheng the seventh spot at the year-end finals.

A race that went down to the wire has seen Navarro pipped at the line by the Olympic champion, who fell to Aryna Sabalenka in Sunday’s Wuhan Open final.

Zheng is one of two debutants at the finals this year, with Jasmine Paolini also qualifying for the first time – the Italian is also featuring in the doubles.

Barbora Krejcikova – who also played in both the singles and doubles in 2016 – takes the eighth spot as the reigning Wimbledon champion.

Last year’s finalists Iga Swiatek and Jessica Pegula both qualify for the third year in a row, while US Open champion Sabalenka also makes the cut comfortably.

Coco Gauff’s recent Beijing title solidifies her spot, while an out-of-sorts Elena Rybakina also qualifies.

Navarro remains as the first alternate, while the second will be either Paula Badosa or Daria Kasatkina instead of Danielle Collins who is injured.

Who is the favorite for WTA finals glory?

Swiatek marched to the title last year, defeating Pegula at the loss of just a single game.

However, with Swiatek having changed coach and missed both the Beijing and Wuhan Open, she is not in the flowing form she perhaps wants to be.

Sabalenka remains the hot-favorite having only lost one match in the last two months.

Debutant and Wuhan Open finalist Zheng remains one to watch too after her exploits over the summer at the Olympics and US Open.

Pegula and Gauff come in off the back of some shaky form, while Rybakina’s continued absence from the tour leaves more questions than answers.

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