WTA Premier 5 · History

Serena Williams won more WTA Premier 5 titles than any other player. She took seven between 2011 and 2016: three in Rome (2013, 2014 and 2016), two in Canada (2011 and 2013) and two in Cincinnati (2014 and 2015). Maria Sharapova and Simona Halep come next with five each. Premier 5 was the second tier of WTA Tour events from 2009 to 2020. Only the Grand Slams, the WTA Finals and the four Premier Mandatory events ranked above it. In 2021 it was replaced by the WTA 1000 category.

Creation in 2009

The category came out of the 2009 overhaul of the women's calendar, when the WTA dropped its Tier system. The old Tier I events were split into two groups. The Premier Mandatory events (Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid and Beijing) were compulsory for the top ten players. The rest became Premier 5. In the first season the series was Dubai, Rome, Cincinnati, Canada and Tokyo. The first champions were Venus Williams in Dubai, Dinara Safina in Rome, Jelena Janković in Cincinnati, Elena Dementieva in Canada and Maria Sharapova in Tokyo.

Calendar changes

The list of events changed several times over twelve seasons. Dubai held the status from 2009 to 2011 and Doha from 2012 to 2014. From 2015 the two Gulf events took turns: Dubai in odd years, Doha in even years. In 2014 Tokyo's Pan Pacific Open left the series and its place went to the new Wuhan Open in China. Petra Kvitová won the first edition, beating Eugenie Bouchard 6-3, 6-4 in the final. Rome, on clay, stayed in the group every year. So did Canada and Cincinnati, the two hard-court events played before the US Open. In 2020 each Premier 5 event gave the champion 900 points and offered $2 million in prize money.

Serena Williams and her seven titles

Serena won her first Premier 5 title in Canada in 2011 and won there again in 2013, the same year she won Rome. She added two more Rome titles, in 2014 and 2016, and won Cincinnati in 2014 and 2015. Three of Sharapova's five titles came in Rome (2011, 2012 and 2015). The other two were Tokyo in 2009 and Cincinnati in 2011. Victoria Azarenka won Doha in 2012 and 2013 and Cincinnati in 2013, then won the 2020 edition seven years later. Caroline Wozniacki won Canada and Tokyo in 2010 and Dubai in 2011.

Halep, Svitolina and Sabalenka

Simona Halep won her first Premier 5 title in Doha in 2014, beating Angelique Kerber 6-2, 6-3 in the final. She went on to win Dubai in 2015, Canada in 2016 and 2018, and Rome in 2020. Elina Svitolina won three in 2017 alone (Dubai, Rome and Toronto) and defended her Rome title in 2018. Aryna Sabalenka won Wuhan in 2018 and 2019 and Doha in 2020. Belinda Bencic won Canada in 2015. In 2019 she won Dubai unseeded, beating four top-ten players on the way: Sabalenka, Halep, Svitolina and Kvitová.

Breakthrough wins

For several players, a Premier 5 title was the biggest of their career at the time. María José Martínez Sánchez won Rome in 2010, Carla Suárez Navarro won Doha in 2016, Caroline Garcia won Wuhan in 2017 and Kiki Bertens won Cincinnati in 2018. In 2019 Bianca Andreescu won Canada and Madison Keys won Cincinnati. Karolína Plíšková won Cincinnati in 2016 and Rome in 2019. Garbiñe Muguruza won Cincinnati in 2017, and Kvitová won Doha in 2018.

The 2020 season and the move to WTA 1000

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the category's final season. Sabalenka won Doha in February. The women's event in Canada was called off after the Quebec government banned public events, and Wuhan was not played. Cincinnati was moved to New York, where Azarenka won. Rome was held in September and won by Halep. In 2021 the WTA merged Premier Mandatory and Premier 5 into a single category, WTA 1000.