Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka enter the 2023 Wimbledon fighting not just for the trophy, but also for the No. 1 spot on the WTA Tour.
For the past 65 weeks, Iga Swiatek occupied the top spot in the WTA Rankings, and even though there was no one anywhere close to her for some time, the battle for the top spot is on in 2023 as Aryna Sabalenka made a case for herself over the first six months.
Winning the 2023 Australian Open and the 2023 Madrid Open, the Belarusian earned enough points to currently lead the 2023 WTA Race, and threaten the 22-year-old Pole at almost every tournament now. At the Roland Garros recently, Sabalenka didn't manage to take the spot as Swiatek won the trophy, but Wimbledon may be a different story.
There are no points to defend from the last year's tournament, so the calculations are quite simple. Swiatek enters the tournament with 9050 points to her name, while Sabalenka has 8066 points that she accumulated over the past 12 months. There are 2000 points on offer for the champion, and quite a lot for every round progressed.
With 984 points between the two, Swiatek doesn't need to go all the way to keep the World No. 1 spot. Moreover, she can feel quite comfortable thanks to her recent results on the surface, and prior to the tournament, the Pole admitted that this year she doesn't feel as much pressure because of being the World No. 1 as she did the last year.
"Last year I felt a lot of pressure here because I was No. 1. I don't know. I feel like this time -- actually, that was the first year where I could just focus on practicing, actually learning a lot. So hopefully I'm going to be able to use that on my matches."
So how can Sabalenka dethrone the current World No. 1. If Swiatek loses in the opening four rounds, the Belarusian will need to reach at least the final to become new leader on the WTA Tour.
If Swiatek makes it at least to the quarterfinals, Sabalenka will need to win the title and if the Pole reaches the final, even the trophy wouldn't help the 25-year-old Belarusian as she would still trail her rival by 284 points despite beating her in the final.
The battle for the World No. 1 spot will be very interesting and being considered one of the favourites is really flattering for Sabalenka who likes to hear her name in the same sentence as names of Iga Swiatek and Elena Rybakina, who are the other two favourites at the event.
"Yeah, I mean, I saw a lot about Big Three. It's really cool to be one of those great players. Hopefully I can continue doing well. Of course, I think we are, like, favorites here. But it doesn't matter who is favorite, it's all about your focus and your tennis. I'm pretty sure if I'm going to bring my best tennis, I'll be focused from the beginning till the end, I'm pretty sure that I can do really well at Wimbledon."
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