Coco Gauff became a Grand Slam champion in 2023, and while she's chasing her second major, the American also wants to be number one on the WTA Tour.
Getting there will take some work, but she finds herself in a uniquely solid situation if she hopes to get there. To be the world number one, a player needs consistently good results, which Gauff has been pretty solid with for much of her career.
One part of her career where that wasn't the case was last year, at least in the first half, where she had a lot of disappointing results. That means she doesn't have many points to defend in the first half of the season.
The vast majority of her points were won in the second half of the season, which puts her in a great position to get to number in the WTA Rankings one by June.
Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka, who are the players above her, have more points to defend than her, so essentially, all Gauff needs to do to become world number by post-Roland Garros is to play her two main rivals even, or even slightly worse.
Now, all of this is very hypothetical; one or two big runs by one or two players obviously throw a lot of that completely away. Still, Sabaelnka won 2000 points at the Australian Open last year, and despite winning the event this year, she hasn't gained anything.
She's still behind Swiatek because she had all the points to defend. As Gauff doesn't, she can earn a lot. Her level in recent months has propelled her to quarter-finals and semi-finals regularly, which is far better than she did last year.
hat means she'll be earning points weekly and, with that, have a good chance of being number one by June. Specifically, by points earned from June last year until now, the American is in the pole position to become the top player in the rankings.
She has earned 5855 points, while second Sabalenka has 5755 points, and third Swiatek 4990. That's the points that these three players keep until June 10th, 2024. If until then Gauff doesn't get overtaken by the two, she will become the singles world no. 1 for the first time in her career.
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