The season-ending women's tennis tournament WTA Finals will be played between October 21 and 27 at the Singapore Indoor Stadium. Top eight singles players will be participating in this final event.

WTA Finals 2018 preview

The current world No. 1 Simona Halep, the reigning French Open champion, has guaranteed she would be ending the year as the top-ranked player but the Romanian won't be there in Singapore as she had to withdraw from the upcoming tournament due to a back injury.

So, this year it will be hard to choose the favourite at the year-ending tournament, as three of the eight finalists are making their WTA finals debut in Singapore and fans will miss those players, who dominated the court over the years.

The eight players have been drawn into two groups of four each as follows

Red Group

1. Angelique Kerber

3. Naomi Osaka

5. Sloane Stephens

8. Kiki Bertens

White Group

2. Caroline Wozniacki

4. Petra Kvitova

6. Elina Svitolina

7. Karolina Pliskova

WTA Finals format

Each player will be featuring in a single-legged round-robin group stage format. The top two players from each group will enter in the semi-final. If two or more players are tied on points, head-to-head record will be considered to decide the group standings. If the head-to-head numbers are also the same, then the number of winning games and sets will decide the classification.

Red Group draw preview

Since Halep is not participating in the tournament, the world No. 2 Kerber has been drawn in a group full of WTA Finals debutants, including Osaka, who recently won her first Grand Slam tournament in US against her idol Serena Williams. All eyes will be on 21-year-old as the Japanese star carries the weight of expectations on her shoulders and she will be hoping to make a mark in her maiden WTA Finals campaign.

(Head to head records)

Angelique Kerber: vs Osaka: 3-1; vs Stephens: 1-4; vs Bertens: 2-1

Naomi Osaka: vs Kerber: 1-3; vs Stephens: 0-1; vs Bertens: 1-0

Sloane Stephens: vs Kerber: 4-1; vs Osaka: 1-0; vs Bertens: 1-0

Kiki Bertens: vs Kerber: 1-2; vs Osaka: 0-1; vs Stephens: 0-1

White Group draw preview

Defending champion of 2017 WTA Finals, Wozniacki headlines the white group, which is going to be tightly-contested, given the seasoned campaigners' presence. The champion of 2018 Australian Open though hasn't fared well against her group mates, barring Pliskova whom she has beaten six times in nine meetings.

Kvitova, seeded fourth at the event, is one of the favourites to make the semi-final from the white group, considering her recent record against her groupmates.

(Head to head records)

Caroline Wozniacki: vs Kvitova: 5-8, vs Svitolina: 1-3, vs Pliskova: 6-3

Petra Kvitova: vs Wozniacki: 8-5, vs Svitolina: 7-1; vs Pliskova: 2-0

Elina Svitolina: vs Wozniacki 3-1, vs Kvitova: 1-7; vs Pliskova: 2-5

Karolina Pliskova: vs Wozniacki: 3-6, vs Kvitova: 0-2, vs Svitolina: 5-2

WTA Finals 2018: Global TV guide

Singapore: Starhub Japan: DAZN Australia: beIN Belgium: beIN Brazil: Sony Canada: TVA Sports China: iQIYI France: beIN Germany: DAZN Malaysia: Astro USA: beIN South Africa: Kwese

WTA Finals 2018: Day 1 Schedule

Petra Kvitova vs Elina Svitolina: 5 pm SGT, 2:30 pm IST and 10 am BST

Caroline Wozniacki vs Karolina Pliskova: Not before 7:30 pm SGT, 5 pm IST and 12:30 pm BST.

Fans can visit the official website of WTA Finals Singapore to buy tickets of the tournament.