The WTA Tour Championships is a tennis tournament played annually at the end of the season for the top-ranked players on the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) tour. The event's current sponsored name is the Sony Ericsson Championships.
The championships were held for the first time in 1972 at Boca Raton, Florida (USA). From 1972-1986, the event was held in March. The WTA then decided to adopt a January-to-November playing season, and so the event was switched to being held at the end of each year. Because of this changeover, two championships were held in 1986. From 1979-2000, the event was held at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The event then briefly moved to Germany (2001). More recently, it has been held in Los Angeles, California (2002-2005). The 2006 edition was held in Madrid, Spain, the site of the 2007 tournament as well.
From 1972-1994, the event was known as the Virginia Slims Championships. Since then it has been officially known by the names of other sponsors (it was called the Chase Championships for a few years in the late-1990s), but is more commonly referred to as the "WTA Tour Championships".
From 1984-1998, the final of the championships was a best-of-five-set match – making it the only tournament on the women's tour to have a best-of-five-set match at any round of the competition. In 1999, the final was reverted to being a best-of-three-set match.
The WTA Tour Championships are generally considered to be the fifth most prestigious event on the women's tour after the four Grand Slam tournaments.
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