Gauff Maintains Slender Lead Over Sabalenka In Olympics Race

Coco Gauff leads the rest of the WTA Tour in the Olympics Race, including the World No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka by the narrowest of margins.

The countdown to the 2024 Paris Olympics has started, with the tennis tournament set to kick off on July 27th and run till August 4th. All the qualifying players on the women's tour will assemble at Roland Garros - which will be the venue for the tournament - to try and win gold.

Gauff will be among the favorites in her first Olympics, and she leads this race, which will be critical in determining the 56 players who will enter the field based on their ranking. The same race will also determine the seeds at the event.

The 19-year-old has compiled 5,855 points since the Olympics Race took effect in the middle of June last season. In that time, Gauff has won three of her biggest WTA titles. She completed a near-perfect US swing, winning the Washington 500, Cincinnati, and a maiden Grand Slam at the US Open.

Gauff also added to her points tally from tournaments in Beijing and Cancun at the backend of last season. She started 2024 in fine form, winning the ASB Classic in Auckland and reaching the semifinal of the Australian Open.

In second place is Aryna Sabalenka, who is just 100 points from the American. Sabalenka will play the tennis tournament as a neutral athlete following the lifting of the ban imposed on Russian and Belarusian athletes by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Iga Swiatek is in third spot and could pass Sabalenka if she wins in Doha. The Belarusian recently pulled out from the first WTA 1000 of 2024. The injured Jessica Pegula is in the fourth spot - one of two Americans in the Top 10.

Marketa Vondrousova is the top-ranked Czech woman in fifth, with Qinwen Zheng in the sixth pot. The Chinese star already qualified by virtue of winning a gold medal at the 2023 Asian Games.

Latvia's Jelena Ostapenko has won two WTA 500 tournaments this season and is in the eighth spot in the race. Ons Jabeur, Elena Rybakina, and Maria Sakkari all feature in the Top 10.

The top-ranked Russian player is Daria Kasatkina (11th), followed closely by Liudmila Samsonova, but they won't play under the flag of their country. It is expected that the Olympics Race will undergo significant changes, with many players potentially finding form between now and June.