Aryna Sabalenka Becomes World Number One Tennis Player”/>
ARYNA Sabalenka took over the world No. 1 position from Iga Swiatek, Monday (21/10), with a narrow margin of 41 points.
Swiatek collected five titles in the first six months of the season looking invincible, but faltered a bit towards the end of the year.
After winning the Wuhan Open last week, Sabalenka crawled to 69 points from Swiatek.
“Yes, the rankings are very tight at the moment. It’s very nice to see that,” said Sabalenka, as broadcast on the official WTA website, Monday (21/10).
This week, Sabalenka surpassed Swiatek for world number one. Neither player was in action last week, but with point adjustments, Sabalenka dropped fewer points than Swiatek.
Over the next two weeks, Sabalenka’s lead is likely to increase, giving her a significant edge to maintain her world number one ranking when appearing at the WTA Finals Riyadh.
A year ago, Swiatek entered the year-end championships ranked second in the world, winning all five of her matches — including a semifinal win over Sabalenka — to reclaim the top spot.
Heading into the Cincinnati Open, Sabalenka was actually ranked third behind Coco Gauff, and Swiatek was up 3,289 points. However, although Swiatek reached the semifinals, Sabalenka won the title and collected 1,000 points.
That cut into Swiatek’s lead as they prepare for the United States (US) Open. Once again, Swiatek produced a strong result, reaching the quarterfinals, but Sabalenka won the title again. This cut the margin to 2,169 points.
Swiatek is the defending champion at the China Open but chose to skip the Asian tour due to a coaching change. So, even though Swiatek’s total points were reduced by 1,000 points, Sabalenka advanced to the quarterfinals, collecting 215 points — giving her a loss of 1,069 points.
Winning the title in Wuhan, beating world number four Gauff in the semifinals and world number seven Zheng Qinwen in the final gave Sabalenka an extra 1,000 points.
This made Sabalenka, in a span of nine weeks, collect 4,000 points. By comparison, only seven WTA Tour players have that total all year.
“To be honest, I don’t try to focus on the rankings,” Sabalenka said after the US Open.
“Yes, hopefully one day I will see myself at the top of the rankings,” he concluded. (Ant/Z-1)
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