WTA Italian Open: Points being defended by Sabalenka, Gauff, Swiatek, Paolini, Raducanu, Eala
The Italian Open marks the second leg of the WTA 1000 clay swing and Jasmine Paolini and Coco Gauff have a lot of points on the spell while Elena Rybakina and Iga Swiatek are in good positions.
The Madrid Open is the first leg of the WTA 1000 red dirt campaign and that came to a conclusion on Saturday with Marta Kostyuk defeating Mirra Andreeva to win her first trophy at this level.
But there is no time to rest as the Italian event starts on 5 May, although the seeded players will all have byes into the second round.
World No 1 Aryna Sabalenka is the top seed and Rybakina, Gauff, Swiatek, Jessica Pegula, Amanda Anisimova, Elina Svitolina, Mirra Andreeva, Jasmine Paolini and Victoria Mboko complete the top 10.
New Madrid Open champion Kostyuk has climbed to a new career-high of No 15 in the WTA Rankings, but the cutoff date for the Rome seedings was Monday, 20 April so she will be seeded 23rd.
Points The Big Names Will Drop In Rome
Players have to defend points from corresponding periods/tournaments 12 months ago as the WTA uses a rolling 52-week cumulative system to determine the rankings.
Those points are removed at the start of a tournament and players then earn points for their round-by-round progression at the event.
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Jasmine Paolini – 1,000
The defending Italian Open champion has slipped to No 9 in the official rankings, but she is in danger of dropping out of the top 10 if she fails to reach the latter stages of the 2026 edition.
Coco Gauff – 650
The American lost third place in the rankings to Swiatek after the Madrid Open and she could fall further behind as she has a lot of points to defend after finishing runner-up to Paolini last year.
Zheng Qinwen/Peyteon Stearns – 390
World No 39 Zheng upset top seed Sabalenka in 2025 to reach the semi-final and she is still nursing her way back to full fitness following her long injury layoff. Once her points are removed, she will drop out of the top 50.
Stearns – currently No 50 – defeated the likes of Madison Keys and Elina Svitolina en route to the last four last year before losing against Paolini.
Aryna Sabalenka/Elina Svitolina/Mirra Andreeva/Diana Shnaider – 215
The reigning Sunshine Double champion was beaten in the quarter-final by Zheng Qinwen in 2025 so she will drop 215 points and an early defeat coupled with a run to the latter stages by Rybakina cold see the gap between the top two in the rankings reduce significantly.
Andreeva and Svitolina are set to remain in the top 10 even if they lose early in Rome.
Marta Kostyuk/Naomi Osaka/Emma Raducanu/Jelena Ostapenko – 120
New Madrid Open champion Kostyuk as well as Osaka, Tauson, Raducanu and Ostapenko were among the players to lose in the fourth round in 2025.
Kostyuk has a chance to edge closer to the top 10 with a deep run Rome while Raducanu needs a decent haul of points if she wants to confirm a seeding for the French Open.
Victoria Mboko – 65+81
The teenager came through qualifying last year and then lost in the second round, earning 65 points before signing up for a WTA125K event where she picked up another 81 points. But she is also assured of earning 10+32 points this year before the tournament even gets underway.
Iga Swiatek – 65
The six-time Grand Slam winner has a 199-point lead over Gauff ahead of the Italian Open and that lead will grow to 784 once last year’s Rome points are removed.
Swiatek was upset in the third round by Danielle Collins last year so will lose only 65 points.
Alex Eala – 10
The Filipina was beaten in the first round by Kostyuk in 2025 so she will drop only 10 points, but will earn that back just by playing in this year’s event. She also needs a deep run if she wants to be seeded at Roland Garros.
Elena Rybakina – 0
Although the reigning Australian Open champion reached the third round in Rome last year and earned 65 points, the Italian Open is one of her non-countable events so she will drop zero points.
With that taken into account, Sabalenka effectively starts the Italian Open with a 1,340-point lead over Rybakina and should the Kazakh player win the tournament with Sabalenka losing in second round, the lead could be just over 300 heading into Roland Garros.
