Aryna Sabalenka has dismissed the World No. 1 ranking as a goal a couple of times this year, but according to her coach, Anton Dubrov, she will pursue it in the coming weeks.
The most recent WTA Rankings have Iga Swiatek quite a bit ahead of Sabalenka, but there are a few reasons for that. The Polish player will defend a significant part of her points in the upcoming weeks.
She won the China Open in Beijing last year, which earned her a good amount of points, and then she won the WTA Finals as well. That's about the difference between her and Sabalenka because the 2024 WTA Race to Riyadh shows us just how close they really are.
Iga Swiatek has 8,285 points, which is about 400 points more than Sabalenka, who has 7,876. That's not a huge difference and certainly within reach for the World No. 2 player, who has outplayed Swiatek in the past weeks.
She won the Cincinnati Open and then also the US Open, playing far better tennis than the Pole has in recent weeks. If she can keep up that level of tennis and finish the year strong, it's not impossible for her to snatch away the number one ranking and finish the year as the highest-ranked player.
She was well on her way to doing that last year, but Swiatek's dominant win in the WTA Finals allowed her to return to number one by season's end.
Many are expecting Sabalenka to come back with a vengeance this year, and while she dismissed it as something she's focusing on, her coach Dubrov admitted that she will go for it.
"The goal is first to be fit and healthy, because it’s going to take a while to recover. The main goal for us this season is to finish on a high note."
"Right now, I would say we can talk about the No 1 spot, to finish the year as No 1 is a really cool goal. But as I said, this [run in New York] took so much energy and emotions so first of all we need to also learn how we can recover as fast as we can and set those goals."
It shouldn't be a huge surprise that the Belarusian player wants to become the World No. 1 on the WTA Tour again because 'going for it' simply means that she will play her best tennis at the events she will attend until the end of the year.
"Because everyone has goals and says, ‘I want to win four Slams and finish No 1’. That’s a cool goal and you can do it but it just takes you a while to manage it."
If the recent trends continue, she's expected to do really well in the remainder of the 2024 season, and Swiatek's spot might be under threat.