WTA Rankings: Aryna Sabalenka ups pressure on Iga Swiatek; Emma Navarro into top 10, Emma Raducanu misses big chance
Iga Swiatek has started her 45th consecutive week at the top of the WTA Rankings, but Aryna Sabalenka’s title-winning run at the US Open means the fight for the year-end No 1 spot will go down the wire.
Five-time Grand Slam winner Swiatek has now spent a total of 120 weeks at No 1 and the reigning French Open champion finds herself eighth in the all-time list for most weeks at the top of the rankings on the WTA Tour.
The Pole has a big enough lead over second-placed Sabalenka to remain at the top until at least mid-October and will thus move ahead of seven-placed Ashleigh Barty (121 weeks) in the all-time in two weeks.
But her lead over Sabalenka has been reduced to 2,169 points after the Belarusian won the season-ending Grand Slam at Flushing Meadows.
With Swiatek having more points to defend during the final few months of the 2024 campaign, the year-end No 1 fight will likely only be decided at the season-ending WTA Finals in Riyadh.
Jessica Pegula’s maiden Grand Slam final appearance at her home major in New York has resulted in a three-place jump back to No 3 in the rankings – her best position since August 2023 – while fellow American Coco Gauff was the one to lose out as she dropped three places to No 6 after failing to defend her US Open crown.
Gauff lost in the fourth round against compatriot Emma Navarro and the 23-year-old Navarro’s run to the semi-finals saw her move up four places to No 8 as she reached the top 10 for the first time in her career.
Two other players in the top 20 also reached career-highs with Anna Kalinskaya moving up one place to No 14 and Diana Shnaider also up a spot to No 17.
Beatriz Hadid Maia and Paula Badosa are back in the top 20 as the former moved up five places to No 16 after reaching the quarter-final while Badosa surged nine places to No 20 after she also reached the last eight.
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Madison Keys, meanwhile, slipped out of the top 20 as she dropped 10 places to No 24, former world No 2 Ons Jabeur now sits at No 22 after dropping five places and former Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova is down 11 spots to No 33.
The other players who have reached career-highs in the top 100 are Lulu Sun (39), Elina Avanesyan (50), Ashlyn Krueger (51), Jessica Bouzas Maneiro (60), Erika Andreeva (68), Harriet Dart (70) and Renata Zarazua (85).
Dart reached the second round of the US Open and earned an eight-place jump and she is now the British No 2 behind Katie Boulter with Emma Raducanu now the No 3.
Raducanu is just two places below Dart at No 72, but she will feel she missed a glorious chance to climb further up the rankings over the past two months.
The 21-year-old started the North American hard-court swing a No 89 and she didn’t have any points to defend. After reaching the quarter-final in Washington DC, she jumped to No 69, but she didn’t play any other US Open warm-up events and then lost in the first round at Flushing Meadows.
Iva Jovic was the biggest winner over the fortnight as she 16-year-old rose 99 places to No 289 after reaching the second round at Flushing Meadows.
WTA Rankings Top 20
1. Iga Swiatek Poland – 10,885 points
2. Aryna Sabalenka – 8,716
3. Jessica Pegula United States – 6,220
4. Elena Rybakina Kazakhstan – 5,871
5. Jasmine Paolini Italy – 5,398
6. Coco Gauff United States – 4,983
7. Qinwen Zheng China – 3,980
8. Emma Navarro United States – 3,810
9. Barbora Krejcikova Czech Republic – 3,631
10. Maria Sakkari Greece – 3,515
11. Danielle Collins United States – 3,362
12. Jelena Ostapenko Latvia – 3,008
13. Daria Kasatkina – 2,803
14. Anna Kalinskaya – 2,772
15. Liudmila Samsonova – 2,720
16. Beatriz Hadid Maia Brazil – 2,581
17. Diana Shnaider – 2,571
18. Marta Kostyuk Ukraine – 2,468
19. Victoria Azarenka – 2,326
20. Paula Badosa Spain – 2,325
