Aryna Sabalenka will start her eighth week at the top of the WTA rankings, but the big question is whether she will stay there beyond Sunday.
Sabalenka is in a race with Poland's Iga Swiatek, the former World No. 1, who wants her crown back. The WTA Finals, which commenced on Sunday, will determine their fate at the end of the week. Just 630 points seperate the world's top two who will vie to win the season finale for the first time.
The regular WTA tennis season came to an end this past week, culminating with one last tournament in Zhuhai - the WTA Elite Trophy. Brazil's Beatriz Haddad Maia defeated China's new star Qinwen Zheng in the final. Haddad Maia rose as high as 11th after that triumph with 2,855 points - just 25 points short of breaking the Top 10.
Zheng, for her part, has climbed to a career-high ranking of No. 15 and will be one of the players to watch out for next season, with her energetic and high-intense style earning her three Top 10 wins this season. Three Chinese players will finish the year inside the Top 40. Aside from Zheng, 29-year-old Lin Zhu and Xinyu Wang have both hit career-high marks.
USA's Emma Navarro broke the world's Top 40 for the first time. The New York native captured the W80 Tyler ITF at the weekend - her fourth title at that level in 2023. Another ITF champion on Sunday was Poland's Magdalena Frech who won the W100 Les Franqueses Del Valles tournament in Spain. She will occupy a new personal-best ranking of No. 63.
It's never too late to win a trophy in tennis. And that was the motto for 30-year-old Emina Bektas who walked away with the Tampico 125K title in Mexico. The big-serving American defeated former World No. 51 Anna Kalinskaya to win the biggest tennis title of her career. She breaks the world's Top 100 for the first time and will sit at a new career high mark of 82.
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