Emma Raducanu among the biggest movers in the 2021 tennis rankings

Emma Raducanu celebrates after a match

Emma Raducanu has emerged as one of the biggest movers in this year’s tennis rankings and she is not alone in making big strides forward in 2021.

The British No 1 has risen a meteoric 324 places since the start of the season and is now No 19 on the end of year WTA rankings.

Raducanu was ranked No 338 in the world at Wimbledon where she shocked the world by reaching the fourth round despite being a wildcard before she had to pull out of the match.

The 19-year-old only turned professional in 2018 but she has already won her first Grand Slam, securing victory at Flushing Meadows in September to win the 2021 US Open.

She hasn’t been too consistent during the 2021 season though, the rising star crashed out of her last competition of the year, the Linz Open, losing to Wang Xinyu in the second round.

However, this is only just the beginning of her hopeful rise to the top and with her new coach Torbin Beltz in tow, her tennis career is already shaping into a highly successful one.

Over in the ATP year-end rankings Carlos Alcaraz is now placed at No 32 after the 18-year-old rose from No 141 at the start of the season.

This makes him the youngest man to finish in the top 32 since Andrei Medvedev ended his season as No 24 in 1992.

Alcaraz won the 2021 Next Gen ATP Finals, his first ATP Finals championship victory, when he beat American Sebastian Korda.

Although he hasn’t quite reached the dizzy heights Raducanu has got to by winning a Grand Slam, this year he managed to make it to the third round of the French Open which was the first time he’d made it that far in a major competition so far in his career.

He bettered this in September at the US Open as he secured a place in the quarter finals against Felix Auger-Aliassime but he had to retire in the second set due to a leg injury.

Juan Manuel Cerundolo from Argentina was the biggest mover in the ATP end of year rankings, going from No 341 to No 89 in just 12 months while the 23-year-old Croatia Ana Konjuh moved a massive 472 places in the WTA list.

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