Aryna Sabalenka has now spent 150 consecutive weeks ranked inside the world's Top 10, becoming the first active player to achieve this landmark.
Sabalenka (150) extends her gap over Greece's Maria Sakkari (105) and Poland's Iga Swiatek (100) in that stat. The Belarusian first broke the world's Top 10 at the end of the 2019 Australian Open, but it wasn't until the following season that Sabalenka became a mainstay in that group.
She regained her Top 10 status towards the end of the pandemic-hit 2020 season winning back-to-back Tour-level titles in Ostrava and Linz. Since then she has never left the WTA's elite, and her ranking has been steadily rising each season before she was able to unseat Swiatek from top spot this year.
Sabalenka became the 29th WTA player to become the World No. 1, doing so following the conclusion of the 2023 US Open. The 25-year-old became just the second Belarusian player to rank as the tennis' top-ranked player, simultaneously ending Swiatek's 75-week dominance.
Sabalenka has pieced together the finest season of her career that began with a bang in Melbourne. She won a maiden Grand Slam singles title at this year's Australian Open, sandwiched between triumphs in Adelaide and the WTA 1000 in Madrid.
Once considered a vulnerable seed in major tournaments, Sabalenka's record in Grand Slam tournaments this season is the best of any WTA player in the current roster. She is the only player to reach the semifinals or better at all four Slams in 2023, including headlining the final in Australia and the US Open.
This week, she kicks off her third week at the top of the standings and enters a crucial stretch that could determine whether she will finish as the year-end No. 1 ahead of closest challenger Swiatek. Sabalenka will return to action at next week's China Open in Beijing.
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