WTA Rankings: How close can Iga Swiatek get to world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka at China Open?

Oli Dickson Jefford 29 Sep 2025 12:45 PM

Pictured: Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka.

WTA Tour stars Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka.

Iga Swiatek is safely through to the fourth round of the China Open, and it is hard to see who will stop the world No 2 and top seed at the WTA 1000 event this week.

After setting several impressive milestones during her opening win over Yuan Yue on Saturday, the Pole was on court for just six games in her third-round match on Monday, with Camila Osorio retiring after the opening set of their encounter.

Victory for Swiatek powers her into a fourth-round contest against 16th seed Emma Navarro — an opponent she holds a 2-0 head-to-head against — and puts her in a strong position to continue a potential challenge to Aryna Sabalenka’s world No 1 ranking.

Here, we look at how close Swiatek can now get to challenging her greatest rival in Beijing this week.

Sabalenka’s status

Sabalenka has been ranked as the world No 1 since October last year, and still has a commanding lead as things stand.

However, the Belarusian will likely be affected by rules regarding WTA Ranking ‘mandatory’ events, and will drop 215 quarter-finalist points from last year’s China Open after her withdrawal from this year’s tournament.

Currently on 11,225 points, Sabalenka will drop to 11,010 points when the WTA Rankings officially drop post-tournament.

Heading into the China Open, Swiatek held 8,433 points.

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How much ground can Swiatek make up?

Having been provisionally suspended during the China Open last year, Swiatek has no points to defend at the tournament in 2025 — something that gave her a huge advantage from a rankings perspective.

The world No 2 cannot directly return to the top of the WTA Rankings with a strong run in Beijing, but has already begun to make some ground on Sabalenka after her opening two victories.

With 120 points to her name, thanks to reaching round four, Swiatek is already up to 8,533 points in the WTA Live Rankings.

That places her within 2,500 points of Sabalenka — still a significant gap — but Swiatek can make up significant ground, especially considering that the world No 1 has 1,000 points to defend as the Wuhan Open champion next week.

Should the Pole defeat Navarro in Wednesday’s fourth-round clash and reach the last eight, that would move her to 8,648 points, up 215 points in the WTA Rankings.

However, if she were to progress to the semi-final, she would move up to an impressive 8,823 points, and she would hit the 9,000-point milestone with a run to the final.

A runner-up finish would put Swiatek on 9,083 points, while a run to the title would place her on 9,433 points.

Those results would put the Pole within 2,000 points of Sabalenka in the WTA Rankings, something that would be significant heading into the Wuhan Open.

With Sabalenka defending 1,000 points and Swiatek defending no points, it would be mathematically possible for the six-time Grand Slam champion to regain the No 1 ranking at the event.