The Insider Wrap is a recap of everything you need to know from the week that was. This week, WTA Insider looks back at the Western & Southern Open, where Caroline Garcia extended her torrid form and Petra Kvitova, Ajla Tomljanovic and Caty McNally also posted key wins.
Performance of the Week: Caroline Garcia
Caroline Garcia’s WTA 1000 Cincinnati triumph, nearly five years after she claimed her last WTA 1000 titles in back-to-back weeks at Wuhan and Beijing in 2017, made everyone sit up and take notice.
But to those who had been recently tracking former World No.4 Garcia, her run through a top-tier event was not exactly a surprise. Let’s break down Garcia’s hot summer.
Since June, Garcia has won the most main-draw matches of any player on tour. Within that run is three titles on three different surfaces: WTA 250 titles on the grass of Bad Homburg in June and the clay of Warsaw in July preceded her victory on the hard courts of Cincinnati.
Garcia has also wrested the title of ace leader on tour away from Elena Rybakina, who used that shot superbly to win the Wimbledon title. Garcia exits Cincinnati with 286 aces on the season, outpacing second-place Rybakina’s 262.
Garcia has also notched four Top 10 wins during this timeframe, defeating World No.1 Iga Swiatek on the Pole’s home soil in Warsaw, then collecting victories over Maria Sakkari, Jessica Pegula, and Aryna Sabalenka this week.
Champions Corner: Garcia casts aside her doubts to make history in Cincy
Frankly, 28-year-old Garcia has turned her season around after going 7-9 in the first half of the season. Since Roland Garros, Garcia has gone 28-6, and she has improved her ranking from a nadir of No.79 in May (her lowest ranking since 2014) to her current position of No.17.
It remains to be seen just how hot Garcia can get with the US Open looming, but her confidence and form makes a return to the WTA Finals for the first time since 2017 a distinct possibility. This week, Garcia rises 13 big spots to No.9 in the Race to the WTA Finals.
Garcia: “When you do bad, people forget about you pretty fast & forget what you did in the past. As soon as you get a couple…