Sofia Kenin has won the WTA Most Improved Player of the Year award for 2019, which is given to the player inside the Top 50 who showed significant improvement throughout the 2019 season.
The American rising star claimed 39% of the vote, which was decided by the media.
Read more: 2019 WTA Player Award Winners Announced
The 21-year-old is now the WTA World No.14, having improved her ranking from 56 at the beginning of the year. She peaked at WTA World No.12, having first broken into the Top 20 in August.
It has been a memorable 2019 for Kenin, who reached her first four WTA Tour finals, winning in Hobart and subsequently picking up titles in Mallorca and Guangzhou, notably defeating Belinda Bencic in the final on the grass in Spain.
She is one of only six players to have won three or more trophies this season, while she claimed wins over WTA World No.1s in successive weeks by defeating Ashleigh Barty in Toronto then overcoming Naomi Osaka in Cincinnati.
Hard courts proved her specialty, though, and over the course of the year she picked up 38 Tour victories on the surface, more than anyone else over the last 12 months.
Her fighting spirit over the course of the year was commendable. No-one won more tiebreak sets than Kenin’s 13 in 2019 – she won 61.9% of sets that went all the way – while she posted 17 three-set wins, a total that only four players on Tour could beat.
She overcame five other players to lift the Most Improved Player of the Year gong, beating out compatriots Amanda Anisimova and Alison Riske. Additionally, she saw off the challenge of Belinda Bencic, Zheng Saisai and Donna Vekic.
