Swiatek Tightens Grip On No. 1 Spot In Latest WTA Rankings Despite Stuttgart Setback

Swiatek Tightens Grip On No. 1 Spot In Latest WTA Rankings Despite Stuttgart Setback

by Nurein Ahmed

Iga Swiatek marks a monumental 100th week as the women's World No. 1 and is destined to stay there for a significant period of this year's clay swing.

Swiatek suffered her first-ever defeat at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, losing in a titanic battle against World no. 4 Elena Rybakina in the semifinal. But she leads second-placed Aryna Sabalenka by almost 3000 points heading to the last two big clay events before Roland Garros.

Coco Gauff had the chance to get near Sabalenka for the No. 2 spot but lost in the quarterfinal at the same event. Rybakina emerged as the eventual champion in Stuttgart and has now built a gap between herself and fifth-placed Jessica Pegula.

The 30-year-old American is nursing an injury and will not play in Madrid. Her absence will allow Maria Sakkari, Marketa Vondrousova, and Qinwen Zheng to battle for fifth place in the rankings. Ons Jabeur and Jelena Ostapenko round off the Top 10.

Marta Kostyuk (Stuttgart finalist) climbs to a new career-high ranking of No. 21. Kostyuk needed to win the title to break the Top 20, but that is only a matter of when and not if the rapidly improving Ukrainian will do it in the coming weeks.

Sloane Stephens won her first WTA title in two years at the inaugural Rouen Open. She moves up six spots to become the world No. 33. The American is making a late push to become a Top 32 seed for Roland Garros.

Rouen runner-up Magda Linette has re-entered the Top 50, settling at 48th. The Pole fell off badly after the Australian Open but is back to playing consistent high-level tennis.

Former World No. 1 Karolina Pliskova (now 53rd) lost her spot in the Top 50 after a round-of-16 defeat to Stephens in Rouen. Caroline Dolehide (56th) is another player who exited the half-century club after taking a week off.

Argentina's Julia Riera makes her Top 100 debut (94th) after winning the W75 Chiasso ITF in Switzerland this past week. You can visit our dedicated rankings page to see all the WTA players who made a significant leap.

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