Edition 32nd Most tournament titles Serena Williams (8) Start date 2002 Tournament 64 | Tournaments 64 Most tournament finals Venus Williams (11) Player of the year Serena Williams | |
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Duration December 31, 2001 - November 11, 2002 Categories Grand Slam (4)
WTA Championships
WTA Tier I (9)
WTA Tier II (17)
WTA Tier III (17)
WTA Tier IV (9)
WTA Tier V (7) Similar 2001 WTA Tour, 2003 WTA Tour, 2000 WTA Tour, 2004 WTA Tour, 1999 WTA Tour | ||
The 2002 Sanex WTA Tour was the elite professional tennis circuit organized by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for the 2002 tennis season. The 2002 Sanex WTA Tour' calendar comprised the Grand Slam tournaments (supervised by the International Tennis Federation (ITF)), the WTA Tier I-V Events, the Fed Cup (organized by the ITF) and the year-end championships.
Contents
New tournaments created for the 2002 season included the Proximus Diamond Games in Antwerp, Belgium; a new green clay event, the Sarasota Clay Court Classic, in Sarasota, U.S.; and the Nordea Nordic Light Open held in Espoo, Finland. Another new tournament was created to be held in Aarhus, Denmark, but was later cancelled. Also, the French Community Championships moved cities from Knokke-Heist to Brussels, and the Kroger St. Jude Championship was moved from Oklahoma City, U.S. to a new location in Memphis.
Season summary
Serena Williams was the outright player of the year, ascending to No. 1 for the first time in July and holding it for the rest of that season. She won her second, third and fourth Grand Slam singles titles at the French Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open, beating her sister Venus in all three finals. This would lead to her non-calendar Grand Slam (dubbed the "Serena Slam") which she would complete at the Australian Open the following year. Her win-loss record for the year was 56–5. Venus Williams also ascended to the No. 1 ranking in February, and finished the season at No. 2. Jennifer Capriati defended her Australian Open title to win her third Grand Slam title, after the two she won in 2001.
Virginia Ruano Pascual and Paola Suárez were the doubles team of the year, and finished the season as the top 2 on the individual rankings. Their titles at the French Open and the U.S. Open represented their second and third Slam titles together. Serena Williams and Venus Williams won their fifth Grand Slam doubles title together at Wimbledon, and Martina Hingis and Anna Kournikova won their second doubles title together at the Australian Open, with it being Hingis' 9th overall.
Former No. 1 Arantxa Sánchez Vicario announced her retirement at the end of the season, although she returned in 2004 to play doubles tournaments.
Schedule
The table below shows the 2002 WTA Tour schedule.
Rankings
Below are the 2002 WTA year-end rankings in both singles and doubles competition:
Statistics
List of players and titles won, last name alphabetically:
The following players won their first title:
Titles won by nation: