Beatrice Haddad Maia (eighth seed) won the WTA Elite Trophy, the most important trophy of her career. In the grand final, the Brazilian was defeated by Qinwen Zheng, the home favorite and seventh seed in Zhuhai (7-6 (11), 7-6(4)).

Beatrice Haddad MayaPhoto: Nathan Denette/AP/Profimedia

The final was tight and very close, with the two players needing two tie-breaks to separate them.

Each time, Haddad Maia had stronger nerves and used her unrivaled experience: 13-11 and 7-4 in the tiebreaks.

The match lasted two hours and 51 minutes.

Know:

  • For the 27-year-old Brazilian, this is the third WTA title in her career, after those won in Nottingham and Birmingham in 2022.
  • The pupil of Raphael Paciaroni also participated in two other finals: Toronto (2022 – lost to Simona Halep) and Seoul (2017).
  • After the victory in Zhuhai, Haddad Maia will make a jump in the WTA ranking by eight places to the 11th place (with 2855 points).
  • On the other hand, Zheng will move up three places in the WTA rankings, and from next week will be at 15 (NCH is the best position occupied at this point in her career).

The result of the match Haddad Maia – Zheng:

WTA Elite Trophy 2023 was held on October 24-29 on the hard court (Greenset) in Zhuhai, China. The competition brought to the start the best players who did not make it to the Cancun Tournament of Champions.

It had a total prize pool of $2,409,000, and there were 12 athletes at the start (divided into four groups of three players each). The first places in each group advanced to the semi-finals.

As the groups showed

Group A (Azalea): Barbora Krejchikova, Darya Kasatkina, Magda Lynette

Group B (Camellia): Madison Keys, Beatrice Haddad Maya, Caroline Garcia

Group C (Orchid): Yelena Ostapenko, Qinwen Zheng, Donna Vekich

Group D (Rose): Lyudmila Samsonova, Veronika Kudermetova, Lin Zhu (wild card).