The Ukrainian Tennis Federation pulled off a surprise this year, giving Dayana Yastremska the Player of the Year award over the world no. 6 Elina Svitolina.
The country’s national tennis association awarded Yastremska the title after the 19-year old Ukrainian’s breakthrough run in the WTA Tour. Despite Svitolina’s consistent top 10 placements, it was Yastremska who showed massive growth in the rankings and the tournaments.
It can be recalled that Svitolina and Yastremska faced off in the third round at Flushing Meadows this year. The 25-year old, who was the fifth seed, prevailed over her compatriot with the score 6-2 6-0. Svitolina eventually lost to Serena Williams in the semi-final round of the tournament.
Dayana Yastremska’s 2019 performance
In 2019, Yastremska has become one of the fastest rising young stars in the tennis rankings.
She grabbed two WTA titles this year, winning Thailand’s Hua Hin Championships and France’s Internationaux de Strasbourg. Most impressively, she ended the year at no. 22 after starting 2019 outside the top 55.
That said she also had her challenges. She was not able to make much of an impact in the French Open, bowing out of the first round. She also had first-round exits in the Indian Wells Open, Madrid Open, Dubai Open and Italian Open. Out of all the Grand Slams, she performed best in Wimbledon, reaching the fourth round.
It looks like Yastremska is determined to rise further in the world rankings, getting Sascha Bajin to become part of her coaching team. The German-Serbian coach memorably helped former world no. 1 Naomi Osaka clinch the 2018 US Open and 2019 Australian Open titles.
Elina Svitolina’s record in 2019
As with the past few years, Svitolina exhibited an amazing performance in the tennis courts again in 2019.
For the first half of the year, a knee injury became a source of headache for the top Ukrainian woman. She did better in the latter part of the year, eventually qualifying for the WTA Finals in China. She then faced off with world no. 1 Ashleigh Barty in the final match of the Shenzhen tournament. She lost with the score 6-4 6-3.
Despite a fairly good record for 2019, Svitolina is still on her quest to win a Grand Slam title. Ever since she went professional in 2010, she has already been vocal about wanting to win one of the top four tournaments in the tennis world.
There is a good chance that she is nearing a Grand Slam win in the next few years. After all, she was able to crack the semifinals of this year’s US Open and Wimbledon for the first time in her career.
Dayana Yastremska’s ranking and performance in 2019
Ranked no.22 (career-high), Dayana played her last match on the 24th of October when she lost to Kiki Bertens 6-4 6-3 in the round robin in Zhuhai.
This year Yastremska has a 34-22 win-loss record. Yastremska has won 2 titles in 2019 in Hua Hin and in Strasbourg.
Elina Svitolina’s ranking and performance in 2019
Ranked no.6, Svitolina played her last match on the 3rd of November when she surrendered to Ashleigh Barty 6-4 6-3 in the final in Shenzhen.
Elina Svitolina’s best performance of the year was reaching the final in Shenzhen.
Dayana Yastremska and Elina Svitolina played each other 1 time. The head to head is 1-0 for Svitolina.
The last time that they played, Elina Svitolina won 6-2 6-0 in the 3rd round in New York (U.S. Open) on the 30th of August 2019.
Here the highlights.
