Best of the best: Iga Swiatek and the WTA stat leaders of 2022

With three Slams behind us, the Hologic WTA Tour players have battled across three different surfaces. Six-and-a-half months into 2022, who sits atop the stat leaderboards ahead of the hard-court season?

The WTA Insider team rounds up the numbers you need to know. 

Given Iga Swiatek's 37-match win streak, which ran for 135 days across three surfaces, there's not a surprise the World No.1 leads the tour in a host of statistical categories. In addition to wins, she leads in titles (6) and Top 10 wins (7). Swiatek has also tallied an absurd number of 6-0 sets (16).

Most Top 10 wins
 
1. Iga Swiatek (POL): 7-1  
T-2. Anett Kontaveit (EST): 3-3
T-2. Veronika Kudermetova: 3-3
T-2.  Amanda Anisimova: 3-3
T-5. Jelena Ostapenko: 3-4
T-5.  Belinda Bencic: 3-4
7.  Daria Kasatkina: 3-8

Swiatek, 21, has won often -- and she has won by wide margins, in large part a result of her incredible return game. More on that below.

Elena Rybakina, the new ace leader, has new hardware heading into this stretch of the season. As she explained on the WTA Insider Podcast, her serving efficiency was no overnight fluke at Wimbledon. The 23-year-old went already went into The Championships as the tour's ace leader, and she continued to light it up en route to her first major title. She is the only player to crack the 200-ace mark this season.

Also notable is Karolina Pliskova's tour-leading of 7.1 aces per match. She has frequently topped the ace leaderboard over the past few seasons, but she has played only 20 matches this season because of a broken arm. 

En route to the Miami Open final in April, Naomi Osaka struck a career-high 18 aces in her three-set win against Belinda Bencic in the semifinals. Osaka has not been able to play as often as she had planned this season after picking up an ankle injury during the clay season, but she remains the toughest player to break when she toes the line. 

As the tour returns to the hard courts for the remainder of the season, one statistic to keep an eye on is Swiatek's break rate. She currently leads the tour in return games won this season, breaking serve 54.1% of the time. Victoria Azarenka set the best single-season mark (2013) in the match-stats era, finishing the year with a break rate of 54.8%.

How the grass was won

The 2022 grass season was one of emergence and resurgence. Brazil's Beatriz Haddad Maia led the way with two titles, winning Nottingham and Birmingham back-to-back before her 12-match win streak came to an end at the hands of Petra Kvitova in the Eastbourne semifinals. 

Caroline Garcia flew through the grass season, winning her first title in three years in Bad Homburg. Behind a remarkably efficient stretch of serving, Garcia made the second week of Wimbledon for the first time since 2017.

Most main-draw match-wins: Grass

1. Beatriz Haddad Maia: 12-2
2. Ons Jabeur: 11-1
3. Simona Halep: 11-2
4. Caroline Garcia: 10-3
5. Elena Rybakina: 8-2

Most service games won: Grass

1. Petra Kvitova: 87.0%
2. Elena Rybakina: 83.6%
3. Ons Jabeur: 82.5%
4. Sabine Lisicki: 82.4%
5. Beatriz Haddad Maia: 82.3%

Most aces: Grass

1. Caroline Garcia: 109
2. Elena Rybakina: 76
3. Maria Sakkari: 60
4. Karolina Pliskova: 54
5. Petra Kvitova: 51

Most aces single match: Grass

1. Caroline Garcia: 18 vs. Zhang Shuai, Wimbledon 3R
2. Karolina Pliskova: 17 vs. Kaia Kanepi, Berlin, 1R 
3. Rebecca Marino: 16 vs. Eden Silva, Nottingham 1R
4. Elena Rybakina: 15 vs. Ajla Tomljanovic, Wimbledon QF
5. Jule Niemeier: 15 vs. Belinda Bencic, Berlin 1R

Most return games won: Grass

1. Daria Kasatkina: 51.6%
2. Sara Sorribes Tormo: 51.4%
3. Simona Halep: 50.8%
4. Yulia Putintseva: 48.5%
5. Ekaterina Alexandrova: 44.9%