She lost in the second round of Charleston to Jana Čepelová and withdrew before her quarterfinals match in Madrid before defending her Rome title, defeating Sara Errani in the final.

Coming as the defending champion of the French Open, she lost in the second round to Garbiñe Muguruza 2–6, 2–6, in her most lopsided slam loss in her career.

She won her 62nd title the following week in Cincinnati, beating Ivanovic in the final, this marks her third time winning the US Open Series.

In the final, she defeated Caroline Wozniacki in straight sets, thus winning her 18th Major singles title, tying the records of Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova.

[5] After prematurely ending her 2013 season due to an injury, Maria Sharapova began 2014 at the 2014 Brisbane International where she lost to top seed Serena Williams in the semifinals.

Then, she travelled to Melbourne to play the Australian Open as the 3rd seed, she managed to reach the 4th round where she lost to Slovak and eventual finalist Dominika Cibulková.

In February, Sharapova played the Paris indoors tournament as the top seed, she lost to fellow Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the semifinals.

She defended her title at Stuttgart defeating Ana Ivanovic in the final in a three-setter and won the Mutua Madrid Open, outplaying Simona Halep in three sets as well.

Sharapova began her 2014 US Open Series campaign at the Rogers Cup losing to Spaniard Carla Suárez Navarro in the third round.

Sharapova won her first hard court title since Indian Wells 2013 at the China Open defeating Petra Kvitová in the final in three set.

She then won the biggest title of her career at the 2014 Qatar Total Open in Doha when she defeated Angelique Kerber in the final.

Playing in front of her home crowd, Halep was impressive when she defeated 2nd seed Roberta Vinci in the final of the inaugural BRD Bucharest Open.

After a couple of early losses in Montreal and Cincinnati, she picked up her second title of the year in New Haven but was then handed an upset by Serbian youngster Aleksandra Krunić in the third round of the US Open.

On 2 October, the last four remaining spots were filled by Eugenie Bouchard, Agnieszka Radwańska, Ana Ivanovic and Caroline Wozniacki.

All four players qualified after Angelique Kerber and Ekaterina Makarova exit in their respective third round matches at the China Open and Li Na's retirement from tennis.

However, she reached her first Australian Open semifinal upsetting two-time defending champion, Victoria Azarenka in the Quarterfinals before losing to Dominika Cibulková.

She returned to her home country to play at the BNP Paribas Katowice Open but lost in the semifinals to Alizé Cornet.

She suffered her first loss in a final of the year at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix to two-time defending champion Maria Sharapova.

She bounced back at the Aegon Classic defeating Czech Barbora Záhlavová-Strýcová in straight set for her third title of the year.

This is the Russians first trip to the tour finals as a singles player, she made her first slam semifinals at the US Open losing to world no.

The Italian duo also captured three more titles, the Mutua Madrid Open over the local pairing of Muguruza & Suárez Navarro, and at the Rogers Cup and Porsche Tennis Grand Prix both over Black & Mirza.

They also reached two other finals but lost, at the Apia International Sydney to Babos & Šafářová and at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia to Peschke & Srebotnik.

On 10 September, Hsieh Su-wei & Peng Shuai and Ekaterina Makarova & Elena Vesnina became the second and third team to qualify for the Championships.

In the next season they reached three finals, the latest of which, the US Open, they won over Hingis & Pennetta; it was the pair's second Grand Slam title in their career.

[12][13] On September 22, after winning the Toray Pan Pacific Open, the team of Zimbabwe's Cara Black and India's Sania Mirza was announced as the fourth qualifier.

[14] Raquel Kops-Jones & Abigail Spears, partners since late 2011 had their best season, it began by reaching their first slam semifinal at the Australian Open.

Spears also reached the final of the US Open Mixed Doubles with Santiago González losing to Mirza & Soares On 2 October, Peschke and Srebotnik became the sixth team to be qualified.

Mugurza also won another title at the Grand Prix SAR La Princesse Lalla Meryem with Oprandi defeating Piter & Zanevska.

Halep leads her head-to-head with Ivanovic 2–1, including winning the last time they met at the 2014 Mutua Madrid Open.

Kvitová leads her match-up with Radwańska 5–1, with the Czech winning the last time the two played at the 2013 WTA Tour Championships.