Flavia Pennetta, who just won the U.S. Open, might still play the WTA Finals in Singapore despite announcing her retirement for the end of the year.
Currently ranked No. 8, Pennetta has said that she will play Wuhan and Beijing in the coming weeks. The WTA Finals in Singapore start on Oct. 25. Serena Williams, Simona Halep and Maria Sharapova have already qualified.
"If I have a chance, of course [I will play]," Pennetta said.
The WTA Finals accepts only the top eight players on tour. Petra Kvitova, Lucie Safarova, Angelique Kerber, Carla Suarez Navarro, Karolina Pliskova and Garbine Muguruza are all in contention to qualify.
Pennetta has said that she has decided to retire because emotionally, she is not as excited to play everyday. She has only made two other deep runs at bigger tournaments this season (making the quarters in Dubai and Indian Wells). The 33-year-old also said it was getting more difficult to compete.
"Because sometimes it's getting hard for me to compete. This is the important point. When you are in the court, when you have to play 24 weeks in the year, you have to fight every week," Pennetta said. "And if you don't fight every week in the same way I did [in the U.S. Open final against Roberta Vinci], it's gonna be like bad. I don't feel to have this power anymore sometimes. So this is the perfect moment, I think. Was a really hard decision to make, but I'm really happy that I did it. I'm really happy and proud of myself."