WTA Race Update: Sabalenka Remains Top But In-Form Ostapenko Motors Into Top Three

Aryna Sabalenka set the early pace in this year's WTA Race but is facing a serious challenger in Jelena Ostapenko as the Latvian rose into the top three.

Sabalenka has garnered the most points of any WTA player this season. She was a runner-up at the star-studded WTA 500 event in Brisbane in the opening week of the season and then completed a successful title defense at the Australian Open.

With those two showings, she received 2,325 points. In second place is China's Qinwen Zheng, whom Sabalenka ruthlessly defeated to win in Melbourne. Sabalenka's withdrawal from the Qatar Open means that Zheng will overtake the Belarusian if she wins the tournament in Doha.

It would be a real statement if Zheng manages to pull it off as she returns to the tour for the first time since tasting defeat in her first Grand Slam final. But one woman is beginning to look like a perennial threat, and her name is Jelena Ostapenko.

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Like Sabalenka, Ostapenko brings some serious power to the table and has been building momentum in 2024. With two titles secured, she is the first double champion this season, having triumphed in Adelaide and Linz.

Ostapenko is the latest player to cross the 1000-point mark this season and rises into third spot ahead of Coco Gauff, who is taking some time off after the Australian Open. Gauff and Ostapenko will not play in Abu Dhabi this week, which gives Elena Rybakina the chance to make some ground in the race.

The Kazakh is the top seed in the UAE's capital and could realistically go up to fourth with a title win in Abu Dhabi. Dayana Yastremska sits at the dizzying heights of fifth, with Iga Swiatek languishing in seventh.

The Polish star has topped the WTA race in the last two years but has a mountain to climb already with one month of the season gone. Other surprise entrants in the Top 10 and who sit behind Swiatek include Linda Noskova, Marta Kostyuk, and Anna Kalinskaya, in that order.

The importance of the WTA Race is that it will determine the eight players who will qualify for the 2024 WTA Finals in a host country that has not yet been named so far, despite Saudi Arabia facing a potential new challenger in the bidding process.

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2024 WTA Race as of February 5th, 2024: