The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) is responsible for organizing and administrating professional women’s tennis globally. The WTA Tour is a circuit of professional tennis tournaments that are of different tiers in terms of the ranking points that they have to offer. One such tier is the WTA 500.
The tournaments that fall under WTA 500 were earlier (1990 to 2008) bracketed under Tier II events. This was renamed to WTA Premier in 2009, which remained so till 2021. Since then, these tournaments are called WTA 500. In the pyramid of WTA tour-level events, the WTA 500 events are considered better than WTA 250 and a tier short of WTA 1000 events.
Over 35 WTA 500 tournaments have been held in different parts of the globe. However, as of 2024, 17 tournaments fall under the WTA 500 strata. Three of these tournaments are played on clay courts, three on grass courts, and the remaining on hard courts.
The size of the draw of a WTA 500 can be as high as 64 players and as low as 28 players in singles. A total of 16 to 24 doubles pairs can be a part of the main draw. Based on the draw size, a typical WTA 500 event will have a Round of 32, Round of 16, Quarterfinals, Semifinals and Final stages.
A runner-up is awarded 325 points whereas the winner gets 500 points. These points contribute heavily towards a player’s year-end ranking. The total prize money for WTA 500 events usually ranges from $700,000 to $900,000. The Brisbane International stands out for being the tournament with the biggest prize money ($1.7 million) among all WTA 500 events.
Lindsay Davenport and Steffi Graf have won a record 26 WTA 500 titles each. Monica Seles is the next best, having won 22 such titles.
