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The WTA Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, brings together the year’s top players for one final showdown. Just because the tournament features only the game’s best doesn’t guarantee close sets — in the last two years, about as many sets have been decided 6-0 or 6-1 as they have 7-5 or 7-6.
But it is success or failure in those 7-6 sets, decided by a seven-point tiebreaker, that can make or break a player’s season and their season finale.
“The mind-set is the most important part of the tiebreaker,” said Pam Shriver, a Hall of Famer, ESPN analyst and coach for the 19th-ranked Donna Vekic. Shriver, who won 21 Grand Slams in doubles, said having someone by her side helped her remain calm and clear during tiebreakers. “When you take your time, things fall into place. The athlete who rushes during a tiebreak gets into trouble.”
Iga Swiatek dominated Jessica Pegula 6-1, 6-0 last year in the tournament’s final, and she is also the best in tiebreakers among the elite eight: In the last two years, Swiatek is 6-2 in tiebreakers against top 10 players, which may give her a critical advantage in this tournament. (The third-ranked Coco Gauff is 4-2 and may also have an edge.)
“You need to be extra focused in tiebreaks, especially on the first point because you want to start well,” the sixth-ranked Jasmine Paolini said. (She’s 2-2 in tiebreakers versus top 10 players over the past two years.)
Shriver says most players include tiebreakers at the end of practice, but many don’t emphasize how to cope in those situations. However, Paolini said she did not really practice for tiebreakers.
Pere Riba, the coach for the seventh-ranked Qinwen Zheng, said that their tiebreakers in practice were not just about tiebreakers, but rather “playing points and working on something specific,” while others strive to replicate the match situation. (Zheng is 1-1 in tiebreakers against top 10 players over the last two years.)
“You just have to get used to playing them and managing the score line through experience in matches,” the fourth-ranked Jessica Pegula said, noting that while the men’s tour is filled with big servers who can seize control of the race to seven points with one mini-break, there are more shifts in momentum for the women.
But Shriver, who said she believed even off-court visualization exercises could help prepare for tiebreakers, thought they were worth practicing for more than just playing points.
“You can’t duplicate the crazy emotions of a tiebreak, but I do believe rehearsing it can get the adrenaline going and help with the real ones,” she said. “These are things you can get better at.” (She noted that Grand Slams now used 10-point super-tiebreakers as the deciding factor in third sets, which required a slightly different mind-set.)
The No. 1-ranked Aryna Sabalenka, this year’s U.S. Open champion, said players could prepare. (She’s 3-2 in tiebreakers against top 10 players over the last two years.)
“I play a lot of tiebreaks with my hitting partner, who puts me under pressure so I can work on getting through the difficult points,” she said.
There’s also debate about the best approach when the set is on the line, which to some extent breaks down to playing style.
“The mental challenge on the tiebreak is to keep playing aggressively, to keep going for your shots, to put the pressure on your opponent,” said Sabalenka, who is known for her aggressive style of play. “You have to trust your game and just go for it. You don’t want to be overprotective.”
By contrast, Pegula said she played “a little safer” in tiebreakers. In a full game, she said, players have more room for error if they blast and miss a first serve.
“In a tiebreak, I go for a higher percentage on my first serve so there’s not as much pressure on my second serve, and I hit with more margin during rallies,” she said. “If you’re feeling pressure, then your opponent is too, so putting the pressure on them to make shots is a good idea.”
Shriver said getting the first serve and shot in play was especially important in tiebreakers and that the trick was to hit with more margin of error — but without getting tentative.
“Hitting big but up the middle is one way to do that,” she said, adding that, however, some champions like Monica Seles succeeded by “hitting even harder and bolder in those big moments.”
Ultimately, Riba said, it may not always make sense to have one specific approach to tiebreakers. “Every situation is different, so you have to read the situation,” he said. “How the player is feeling in the moment is the most important thing.”
With courtside coaching now allowed, Shriver said that beyond keeping a player calm, a coach should focus only on one simple thing before or during a tiebreaker. “It might be something like, ‘Your opponent’s forehand is starting to break down, so pick on that,’” she said.
Sabalenka said that while winning a set by two games was better because it meant you broke your opponent’s serve more, surviving the mental gantlet of the tiebreaker could provide a boost for the next set. “You feel energized for being able to go through that,” she said.
Paolini said that the loser of a tiebreaker faced an extra challenge, having been so close to victory. She said that after losing a tiebreaker, it was vital to reset mentally, and to do it quickly, before the next set slipped away. “It’s especially important in the first game of the next set,” she said
Shriver noted that in the early going of the WTA Finals, the round-robin format meant that in the first matches there was actually less pressure than usual for tiebreakers. But then it shifts striking. “In the semifinals and finals, which can put an exclamation point on your year, those tiebreaks mean a lot.”
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