Gauff Maintains Slender Lead Over Sabalenka In Olympics Race

Gauff Maintains Slender Lead Over Sabalenka In Olympics Race

by Nurein Ahmed

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.

2024 Women's Olympics Race as of February 5th, 2024:

Rank Players Points
1 Coco Gauff 5855
2 Aryna Sabalenka 5755
3 Iga Swiatek 4990
4 Jessica Pegula 4045
5 Marketa Vondrousova 3240
6 Qinwen Zheng 3183
7 Ons Jabeur 2908
8 Jelena Ostapenko 2715
9 Elena Rybakina 2639
10 Maria Sakkari 2583
11 Daria Kasatkina 2239
12 Liudmila Samsonova 2024
13 Madison Keys 1922
14 Ekaterina Alexandrova 1793
15 Barbora Krejcikova 1639
16 Caroline Garcia 1555
17 Emma Navarro 1537
18 Karolina Muchova 1510
19 Beatriz Haddad Maia 1494
20 Elina Svitolina 1415
21 Jasmine Paolini 1405
22 Veronika Kudermetova 1379
23 Dayana Yastremska 1321
24 Linda Noskova 1257
25 Katerina Siniakova 1112
26 Victoria Azarenka 1098
27 Elise Mertens 1075
28 Clara Burel 1074
29 Petra Kvitova 1070
30 Marta Kostyuk 1049
31 Leylah Fernandez 1024
32 Marie Bouzkova 1013
33 Katie Boulter 988
34 Xinyu Wang 984
35 Lin Zhu 982
36 Donna Vekic 973
37 Sofia Kenin 964
38 Anna Kalinskaya 954
39 Mirra Andreeva 938
40 Yue Yuan 906
41 Sorana Cirstea 879
42 Cristina Bucsa 869
43 Viktorija Golubic 861
44 Magdalena Frech 859
45 Tamara Korpatsch 856
46 Tatjana Maria 845
47 Arantxa Rus 843
48 Caroline Dolehide 842
49 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 835
50 Ana Bogdan 809
51 Lesia Tsurenko 803
52 Ashlyn Krueger 799
53 Danielle Collins 795
54 Diana Shnaider 793
55 Magda Linette 777
56 Xiyu Wang 775
57 Sara Sorribes Tormo 772
58 Belinda Bencic 772
59 Lucia Bronzetti 760
60 Diane Parry 759
61 Anna Blinkova 744
62 Yafan Wang 739
63 Nadia Podoroska 721
64 Jodie Burrage 714
65 Oceane Dodin 704
66 Anhelina Kalinina 695
67 Zhuoxuan Bai 690
68 Harriet Dart 674
69 Yulia Putintseva 672
70 Viktoriya Tomova 659
71 Anastasia Potapova 649
72 Brenda Fruhvirtova 644
73 Marina Bassols Ribera 641
74 Renata Zarazua 640
75 Laura Siegemund 640
76 Alize Cornet 637
77 Sloane Stephens 629
78 Martina Trevisan 628
79 Elisabetta Cocciaretto 623
80 Petra Martic 620
81 Maria Timofeeva 599
82 Arina Rodionova 594
83 Taylor Townsend 594
84 Jaqueline Cristian 590
85 Erika Andreeva 585
86 Aliaksandra Sasnovich 577
87 Emina Bektas 564
88 Anna Karolina Schmiedlova 551
89 Elina Avanesyan 538
90 Clara Tauson 525
91 Mai Hontama 523
92 Nao Hibino 523
93 Kaja Juvan 522
94 Daria Saville 519
95 Greet Minnen 503
96 McCartney Kessler 497
97 Rebeka Masarova 489
98 Anna Bondar 482
99 Tamara Zidansek 478
100 Varvara Gracheva 476

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