Elena Rybakina secures year-end No 1 ranking as she becomes 17th woman to achieve WTA feat
Elena Rybakina is now guaranteed to finish the 2026 season as the year-end No 1 as her win at the Pan Pacific Open means Aryna Sabalenka can no longer overtake her.
Sabalenka has finished the past two years at the top of WTA Rankings as she spent 99 consecutive weeks at No 1 from October 2022 until September 2026 with her reign ended by Rybakina after this year’s US Open.
Three-time Grand Slam winner Rybakina officially took over at the top on 14 September as she became the 30th woman to be No 1 in the rankings, but she still had work to do to secure the year-end No 1 feat.
After a shock early exit from the China Open, the Kazakh star bounced back with a title run at last week’s Ningbo Open, meaning she only had to win one match at this week’s WTA 500 event in Japan.
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And she got the job done with 6-2, 6-3 win over qualifier Yulia Putintseva in the second round and it is now mathematically impossible for second-placed Sabalenka to overtake her before the year is out.
Rybakina started the Pan Pacific Open on 8,001 points in the Live WTA Race with the Belarusian on 6,550 points for a lead of 1,451 points, but with 1,500 points up for grabs for an undefeated champion at the season-ending WTA Finals, Sabalenka still had a slim chance.
But those hopes are now over as the top seed earned 60 points by reaching the quarter-finals, giving her a points advantage of 1,511.
Rybakina becomes only the 17th woman to be crowned year-end No 1 in the WTA Rankings since the introduction of the rankings in 1975.
List Of Year-End No 1 Players
The great Chris Evert was the first to finish as the year-end No 1 securing the honour in 1975 and she went on to finish three consecutive years at the top of the WTA Rankings before Martina Navratilova joined the list in 1978.
Navratilova finished back-to-back seasons as the year-end No 1 before Evert returned for two more years, but Navratilova then dominated from 1982 until the end of 1986.
Enter Steffi Graf as the German finished top four years in a row 1987 to 1990 at the top before was knocked off by Monica Seles in 1991.
Seles achieved the year-end No 1 feat for two consecutive years and then Graf was back for four years in a row, but the 1995 season had two year-end No 1 with Graf and Seles sharing the honour.
Martina Hingis ended the Graf-Seles dominance in 1997 before Lindsay Davenport topped the year-end rankings the following year.
The two traded places a couple of times before Serena Williams finished as No 1 for the first time in her career in 2002, while Justine Henin was the eighth woman to achieve the feat.
Jelena Jankovic joined the list in 2008 and Caroline Wozniacki followed the next year and Victoria Azarenka in 2012.
After a bit of Williams dominance, Angelique Kerber was a new name in the circle in 2016 with Simona Halep adding her name in 2017.
Ashleigh Barty then dominated from 2020 until her retirement, paving the way for Iga Swiatek to become the 15th year-end No 1 in 2022 with Sabalenka becoming No 16 in 2024 and Rybakina No 17 in 2026.
