LOS ANGELES, Oct. 27, 2022 – Tennis Channel will have complete, live coverage of the season-ending WTA Finals in Ft. Worth, Tex., October 31-November 7. The tournament, which features the top-eight singles and doubles point earners of 2022, is the most exclusive event in women’s tennis and this year includes American stars Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula for the first time. Both will compete in singles and as a doubles team. The action will take place live on Tennis Channel, streaming service Tennis Channel Plus and free ad-supported television channel T2 on Samsung TV Plus starting with the first day of play.
Tennis Channel plans to show more than 60 live hours of the WTA Finals in 2022, with another 60 hours of encore replays. The network’s typical daily coverage gets underway at 4 p.m. ET, with two singles and two doubles matches during the round-robin stage of the tournament (complete schedule below). Semifinal matches are set for Sunday, Nov. 6, at 2:30 p.m. ET and 8 p.m. ET, with singles and doubles finals planned for Monday, Nov. 7, at 6:30 p.m. ET.
Hall of Famer Pam Shriver (@PHShriver) will announce matches for the network, alongside analysts and fellow Hall of Famers Tracy Austin (@thetracyaustin) and Lindsay Davenport (@LDavenport76). Shriver won 10 WTA Tour Finals doubles championships during her career, while Austin won the event’s 1980 singles title. Davenport won the singles crown in 1999 and three doubles tournaments. Award-winning sportscaster Steve Weissman (@SteveWeissman) will host the network’s tournament desk with former player Chanda Rubin (@ChandaRubin). A 1996 Australian Open doubles champion, Rubin qualified for the year-end championships in 2003. Studio show Tennis Channel Live, hosted by decorated announcer Brett Haber, will delve into the WTA Finals with Austin and Davenport, with appearances by former No. 1 Andy Roddick (@andyroddick).
Throughout the tennis season, players accumulate points based on their on-court achievements. At the end of the year, the top-eight singles and doubles point earners qualify for the WTA Finals, which split the stars into two groups of four singles players and doubles teams in each draw. The first stage of the competition is held in a round-robin format, with players facing everyone else in
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their group and guaranteed at least three matches during the event. This setup also provides tennis fans daily lineups of high-caliber matches between the best-performing stars of the season. The top two singles players or doubles teams from each group advance to the single-elimination semifinals, with winners competing for the year-end championship.
Since becoming an overnight phenomenon as a 15-year old with her defeat of all-time great Venus Williams at Wimbledon in 2019, Gauff’s star has risen with each successive campaign. In 2022 she put together her best season to date, climbing to No. 4 in singles and reaching the French Open final, her first at a major tournament. In doing so she became the youngest in a Grand Slam championship since 2004, and followed the achievement by reaching the quarterfinals at the US Open this summer.
Heading into her first WTA Finals, Pegula has been one of the most consistent players on the pro circuit this year. She reached the quarterfinals at the Australian Open, French Open and US Open, and recently won her first WTA 1000 tournament in Guadalajara, Mexico, this month. She is currently a career-high No. 3 in singles, the top-ranked American since 2019.
Gauff and Pegula also made noise in doubles, finishing the year ranked No. 4, the highest spot for an American team since Williams and her sister Serena in 2010.
Other stars in the 2022 WTA Finals include World No. 1 Iga Swiatek, who at times has seemed unbeatable. She won 37 matches in a row in the first half of the season (the most by a player since 1997) and became the first since 2016 to win two majors in the same year with her French Open and US Open championships. No. 2-ranked Ons Jabeur’s season was another coming out party. In addition to reaching a career milestone in the rankings, she achieved back-to-back major singles finals at Wimbledon and the US Open, and won her first WTA 1000 in Madrid. Jabeur also set new standards as the first Arab or North African woman to crack the top five in rankings and reach a major singles final.
Tennis Channel’s Live 2022 WTA Finals Coverage
Date Time (ET) Event
Monday, Oct. 31 4 p.m. Singles, Doubles Round Robin
Tuesday, Nov. 1 4 p.m. Singles, Doubles Round Robin
Wednesday, Nov. 2 4 p.m. Singles, Doubles Round Robin
Thursday, Nov. 3 4 p.m. Singles, Doubles Round Robin
Friday, Nov. 4 2:30 p.m. Singles, Doubles Round Robin
8 p.m. Singles, Doubles Round Robin
Saturday, Nov. 5 2:30 p.m. Singles, Doubles Round Robin
8 p.m. Singles, Doubles Round Robin
Sunday, Nov. 6 2:30 p.m. Singles, Doubles Semifinals
8 p.m. Singles, Doubles Semifinals
Monday, Nov. 7 6:30 p.m. Singles, Doubles Finals
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Tennis Channel (www.tennischannel.com) which is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, is the only television-based multiplatform destination dedicated to both the professional sport and tennis lifestyle. The network has the most concentrated single-sport coverage in television in one of the world’s most voluminous sports, with multiple men’s and women’s tournaments and singles, doubles and mixed competition throughout the year. Tennis Channel has rights at the four majors – US Open, Wimbledon, Roland Garros (French Open) and Australian Open – and is the exclusive U.S. home of all men’s ATP World Tour and women’s WTA Tour competitions, Laver Cup and Billie Jean King Cup. Direct-to-consumer streaming service Tennis Channel Plus is available to everyone in the United States and allows subscribers to select from another 4,500 live and on-demand matches and award-winning content from short-form to films throughout the tennis season. Tennis Channel International brings live competition and network content to markets in Europe and Asia via digital subscription and free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels. Additional platforms Tennis Magazine and www.tennis.com are the largest print and digital outlets dedicated to the sport. Tennis Channel also manages a network of close to 20 podcasts.
About Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc.
Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. is a diversified media company and a leading provider of local news and sports. The Company owns, operates and/or provides services to 185 television stations in 86 markets; owns multiple national networks including Tennis Channel and Stadium; has TV stations affiliated with all the major broadcast networks and owns and/or operates 21 regional sports network brands. Sinclair’s content is delivered via multiple platforms, including over-the-air, multi-channel video program distributors, and digital and streaming platforms NewsON and STIRR. The Company regularly uses its website as a key source of Company information which can be accessed atwww.sbgi.net.
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Eric Abner, Tennis Channel, 310-314-9445, eabner@tennischannel.com, @TennisChannelPR