Which American Woman Has Had the Best 2025 Season?

Weighing the ups and downs for Anisimova, Gauff, Pegula and Keys in a (star-spangled) banner year for U.S. women's tennis.

Before getting into today’s overarching topic, I want to briefly check in on the current state of the tennis tours, which are enduring considerable carnage as they limp through China this week.

On the men’s side at ATP 1000 Shanghai, there were seven mid-match retirements through just the first three rounds, and that came after a whole raft of players had already withdrawn before their first match.

Jannik Sinner succumbing to cramps in a third round exit against Tallon Griekspoor was particularly striking, resulting in a rare loss for Sinner or Alcaraz against anyone but the other. Alcaraz had withdrawn before his first match in Shanghai, meaning the field is now open for an unexpected champion.

Beyond Alcaraz, here’s what the pre-tournament withdrawals looked like for players who were directly entered into the respective 1000-level events in Shanghai and Wuhan.

Two of the names on that Wuhan withdrawal list will come into greater focus here today. In a companion piece of sorts to a podcast I recorded Tuesday with Alex Gruskin of Cracked Racquets, I want to work toward an answer—and get your thoughts—on a question that seems straightforward but actually proves to be pretty complex:

Which American woman has had the best 2025 season?

There are four American women in the Top 6 of the WTA’s Race to Riyadh, with three of them—Coco Gauff, Amanda Anisimova, Madison Keys—having already qualified. It would take a whole lot of bad luck, this late in the season, for three or more players to pass Jessica Pegula, who should be in pole position to qualify next.

Keys qualified before Pegula by virtue of her major title.

If all four qualify as expected, this would be the first time since 2003 that four American women appear in the WTA Finals’ exclusive field of eight. It would also be the first time four women from any single country have made it since 2008, when four Russians (including recent Hall of Fame nominee Svetlana Kuznetsova) qualified.

The bumper crop of success for American women’s tennis in 2025 probably hasn’t received nearly as much celebration as it deserves, both for these individuals and whole other cohort of worthy honorable mentions.¹

But which of these four women has had the best season? As we consider our options, there have been huge highs and considerable lows for each of them, so let’s break down the arguments for and against each of this quartet.