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

| by Nurein Ahmed

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:

Rank Player Points
1 Aryna Sabalenka 2325
2 Qinwen Zheng 1375
3 Jelena Ostapenko 1238
4 Coco Gauff 1030
5 Dayana Yastremska 905
6 Elena Rybakina 679
7 Linda Noskova 650
8 Iga Swiatek 630
9 Marta Kostyuk 570
10 Anna Kalinskaya 547
11 Ekaterina Alexandrova 531
12 Daria Kasatkina 504
13 Emma Navarro 478
14 Victoria Azarenka 435
15 Barbora Krejcikova 432
16 Elina Svitolina 403
17 Elise Mertens 401
18 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 399
19 Mirra Andreeva 348
20 Jessica Pegula 300
21 Clara Burel 299
22 Oceane Dodin 296
23 Magdalena Frech 290
24 Lin Zhu 288
25 Maria Timofeeva 286
26 Jasmine Paolini 277
27 Amanda Anisimova 270
28 Diana Shnaider 262
29 Katie Boulter 245
30 Donna Vekic 245
31 Yafan Wang 244
32 Clara Tauson 234
33 Beatriz Haddad Maia 226
34 Caroline Garcia 226
35 Anastasia Potapova 226
36 Katerina Siniakova 216
37 Diane Parry 209
38 Anastasia Zakharova 187
39 Viktorija Golubic 179
40 Laura Siegemund 179
41 Nuria Parrizas Diaz 179
42 Storm Hunter 171
43 Xinyu Wang 169
44 Sloane Stephens 163
45 Anna Blinkova 163
46 McCartney Kessler 163
47 Elina Avanesyan 162
48 Lesia Tsurenko 161
48 Paula Badosa 161
50 Maria Sakkari 161

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