Every WTA Finals has eight singles qualifiers and two more players who are not in the field. The alternates are the players who finish just behind the qualifiers in the Race to the WTA Finals. They are named when the field is set, and they are the cover if a qualifier cannot play, whether she withdraws before the event or in the middle of the round robin.
The question is live this week. With one place left for Indian Wells, Iga Swiatek’s withdrawal from Ningbo leaves her unable to catch Karolina Muchova on points. If the standings hold, Swiatek and Marta Kostyuk finish as the first two players outside the field.
Who Becomes an Alternate
The field comes from the PIF Race to the WTA Finals leaderboard: the top eight singles players, with the eighth place going instead to a current-year Grand Slam singles champion ranked eighth to 20th if one has not otherwise qualified. That rule, and how Race points are counted, is covered in our WTA Finals qualification explainer and our guide to the Race to the WTA Finals.
The alternates come from the players who miss out. In October 2025, with Mirra Andreeva, Jasmine Paolini and Elena Rybakina chasing the last two places, the WTA said that whichever of the three finished outside the top eight would be designated first alternate, and it followed a separate race further down the standings for the second alternate. When the field was complete, the WTA named Andreeva first alternate and Ekaterina Alexandrova second.
When a Qualifier Withdraws Before the Event
The first alternate moves into the field. In October 2023 Muchova, the eighth player to qualify, withdrew from the WTA Finals in Cancun with a right wrist injury five days before play began. Maria Sakkari, ranked ninth, had missed the cut by one place; as first alternate she took Muchova’s spot and made her third straight appearance at the event.
“Together with the team and doctors, we tried everything till the last moment to resolve my wrist injury. Unfortunately, the time needed for the recovery is longer than we would’ve hoped for,” Muchova said, “and therefore I had to make this unpleasant decision.”
When a Qualifier Withdraws During the Round Robin
The alternate takes the withdrawn player’s place in her group for the matches she has left. In Riyadh in 2024, Jessica Pegula lost her first two matches, was out of semifinal contention and withdrew with a left knee injury before her last group match, against Swiatek. Daria Kasatkina, the first alternate and world No. 9 at the time, played Swiatek in her place.
“Just been kind of struggling with a little bit of an injury,” Pegula said, “and for whatever reason, it kind of really flared up this week. Not really sure why.” An alternate’s match can still decide someone else’s week. Swiatek went into that final round of the Orange Group needing to beat Kasatkina and also needing Coco Gauff to beat Barbora Krejcikova to reach the semifinals.
A year later the first alternate turned the chance down. Madison Keys, 0-2 after a three-set loss to Amanda Anisimova, withdrew with a viral illness hours before her last group match against Rybakina. Andreeva, the first alternate, declined to play, citing fitness concerns. Alexandrova, the second alternate, made her WTA Finals debut at 30 and lost to Rybakina in straight sets.
What the 2026 Rulebook Fixes
The 2026 WTA Rulebook, dated 27 July 2026, treats the alternates as part of the Finals week. It refers to “the two confirmed WTA Finals Alternates” and bars them, like the qualifiers, from playing a WTA 125 tournament in the same week as the WTA Finals, even if they withdraw from the Finals.
The qualifiers have less room to step away than at a regular event. A player who qualifies for the singles must play under the rulebook’s WTA Finals section, and neither an Excused Withdrawal nor a Prize Money Withdrawal can be used at the Finals. The WTA Finals section of the rulebook sets out the detailed alternate procedure. This explainer describes how the WTA has applied it at the 2023, 2024 and 2025 editions.
The ATP Version
The men’s tour names alternates for Turin under its own rules. See our ATP Finals alternates explainer, and our guide to both season finales for format and prize money.
Season Snapshot — 20 October 2026
- Qualified (7): Elena Rybakina, Aryna Sabalenka, Mirra Andreeva, Jessica Pegula, Coco Gauff, Elina Svitolina, Linda Noskova
- Last place: Karolina Muchova, seventh in the Race on 4,735 points, not playing this week
- Iga Swiatek: ninth on 4,189; withdrew from Ningbo on 20 October with a left thigh injury and can no longer pass Muchova on points
- Marta Kostyuk: 10th on 3,920; third seed in Ningbo. Muchova takes the last place unless Kostyuk reaches the Ningbo final
- WTA Finals: Indian Wells, 8 to 15 November
This snapshot is dated and will change. The career record above does not.
