WTA Rankings: Aryna Sabalenka’s healthy lead, Emma Navarro back at career high, Katie Boulter -12
There was no change in the top five of the WTA Rankings with Aryna Sabalenka still comfortably ahead of second-placed Iga Swiatek while it was a good week for the American trio of Jessica Pegula, Emma Navarro and McCartney Kessler.
Most of the players inside the top 10 of the rankings didn’t feature in week eight of the WTA Tour as they opted to take a breather ahead of the hectic Sunshine Double in March with the Indian Wells Open starting on 5 March before the Miami Open gets underway a fortnight later.
The top three were unchanged in terms of position and points with Sabalenka sitting on pretty at No 1 on 9,076 points for a healthy 1,091-point advantage over Swiatek while Coco Gauff is another 1,652 points adrift in third place.
Three-time Grand Slam winner Sabalenka’s lead is likely to grow at the back-to-back WTA 1000 events in the United States as she is defending less than 200 points while Swiatek will drop more than 1,000.
The Belarusian has now spent 28 weeks at the top and is set to move up to 15th in the all-time list for most weeks at No 1 as Angelique Kerber is ahead of her on 34 weeks.
Pegula and Navarro were the two top-10 players in action last week and they were richly rewarded as they both enjoyed WTA title runs with the former winning the ATX Open while the latter walked away with the WTA 500 Merida Open trophy.
Pegula won her seventh title with a straight-set win over Kessler in Texas, but she remains in fourth place in the WTA Rankings with 5,251 points. Kessler is up eight spots to No 48, one spot below her highest-ever position.
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Navarro has returned to her career-best No 8 following the biggest title of her career as she won her second WTA trophy more than a year after lifting the WTA 250 Hobart International.
There is one more change to the top 10 with Paula Badosa returning to No 10 and Mirra Andreeva dropping to 11th after the Spaniard’s run to the quarter-final in Mexico.
Ekaterina Alexandrova and Yulia Putintseva both move up two places to No 19 and No 20 respectively while Marta Kostyuk dropped five spots to No 24.
British No 1 Katie Boulter started last week at No 26, but she didn’t defend the points she won from her title run at San Diego last year due to injury and, as a result, slipped to No 38.
Grand Slam winners Emma Raducanu and Naomi Osaka are at No 55 and No 56 respectively.
Emiliana Arango was the beaten finalist in Merida and the Colombian has surged 53 places to a career-high No 80 having come through qualifying to reach her maiden WTA Tour final while 18-year-old Australian Maya Joint is up 18 places to No 85 (a new best) after reaching the last eight.
WTA Rankings Top 20
1. Aryna Sabalenka – 9,076 points
2. Iga Swiatek Poland – 7,985
3. Coco Gauff United States – 6,333
4. Jessica Pegula United States – 5,251
5. Madison Keys United States – 4,679
6. Jasmine Paolini Italy – 4,518
7. Elena Rybakina Kazakhstan – 4,328
8. Emma Navarro United States – 4,009
9. Zheng Qinwen China – 3,780
10. Paula Badosa Spain – 3,746
11. Mirra Andreeva – 3,720
12. Daria Kasatkina – 3,116
13. Diana Shnaider – 2,908
14. Danielle Collins United States – 2,823
15. Karolina Muchova Czech Republic – 2,734
16. Barbora Krejcikova Czech Republic – 2,675
17. Beatriz Hadid Maia Brazil – 2,369
18. Amanda Anisimova United States – 2,326
19. Ekaterina Alexandrova – 2,158
20. Yulia Putintseva Kazakhstan – 2,138
