The 2008 WTA Tour calendar comprises the Grand Slam tournaments (supervised by the International Tennis Federation (ITF)), the WTA Tier I-IV Events, the Fed Cup (organized by the ITF), the year-end championships, and the tennis event at the Beijing Summer Olympic Games.

1 ranking, with Justine Henin, Maria Sharapova, Ana Ivanovic, Jelena Janković and Serena Williams all holding the position at some point during the season.

One of the big stories of the year was the shock retirement of Justine Henin on May 14, less than two weeks before she was set to defend her French Open title.

Following her impressive 2007 season and victory at the warm-up tournament in Sydney, she was considered the outright favourite to win the Australian Open.

However, she was beaten in emphatic fashion by Maria Sharapova in the quarterfinals, who then defeated Jelena Janković and Ana Ivanovic to win her third Grand Slam title.

Her 17-match winning run was eventually ended in Berlin by Dinara Safina, who had already beaten Henin in that tournament, and subsequently went on to lift the title.

1 Sharapova was stopped by Safina in the fourth round, who fought back from match points down to win, before doing the same against Elena Dementieva in the quarterfinals.

The third Grand Slam of the year at Wimbledon brought with it some surprises: for the first time in the Open Era none of the top four seeds managed to reach the semifinals.

1 Ivanovic surrendered to Zheng Jie in the third round, who went on to become the first Chinese women to reach the semifinals of a Grand Slam in singles.

Sharapova was upset by Alla Kudryavtseva, and Kuznetsova lost to Agnieszka Radwańska, who had shown prior form winning the warm-up tournament in Eastbourne.

She then made it to the final match at the Beijing Olympics, but lost to Dementieva, who achieved her biggest career victory with the gold medal.

With Vera Zvonareva also winning the bronze medal it meant that Russia swept the podium in the singles event.

Both had a solid indoor season with Petrova making the final of Stuttgart and winning Quebec, and Kuznetsova finishing runner-up in Beijing and Tokyo.

Other players at the final event were semifinalists Elena Dementieva and Jelena Janković, Dinara Safina, Serena Williams, Ana Ivanovic and Svetlana Kuznetsova, plus alternates Agnieszka Radwańska and Nadia Petrova.