Swiatek achieves more rankings history, yet Sabalenka’s irrepressible rise looms large
The Pole is now into her 125th week as world No 1, having first reached the summit of the WTA rankings on April 4th, 2022
Iga Swiatek won the 2023 WTA Finals as world No 1 (Fernando Llano/AP/SIPA)
For the past two-and-a-half years, the WTA Tour has been defined by the dominance of Iga Swiatek.
Nowhere is this more starkly illustrated than in the WTA rankings. Since April 4th 2022, the imperious Pole has slipped from the world No 1 position just once – for a fleeting eight weeks at the tail end of the 2023 season – before reasserting her authority on the rest of the field by reclaiming top spot in time to clinch the year-end No 1 ranking, taking the WTA Finals title with it, just for good measure.
It was this brief blip that has, inadvertently, allowed Swiatek to accomplish the latest of her increasingly impressive ranking records.
The world No 1 is currently enjoying her 125th week as the leading women’s player. But more pertinently, she has also just notched a 50th consecutive week at the top of the pile – for the second time.
This makes Swiatek just the seventh player in WTA rankings history to record multiple 50-week stints at No. 1. And she is keeping some good company.
The other women to achieve this feat are Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf, Monica Seles, Martina Hingis and Serena Williams.
Swiatek’s consecutive runs as the WTA’s finest are comprised of a first stint of 75 weeks between April 2022 and September 2023, followed by her current stretch spanning from November 2023 to this October, and counting.
sabalenka cuts massive points deficit to sit right behind swiatek
But this latest milestone comes amid a serious threat to her No 1 crown from her ever-burgeoning rival Aryna Sabalenka.
Astonishingly, as recently as just one month ago, any challenge to Swiatek’s rankings crown looked essentially impossible. On 16th September, the Pole enjoyed a 2169 point lead over second-placed Sabalenka.
But with Swiatek missing both 1000-level events in Beijing and Wuhan, the Belarusian has seized the opportunity excellently. With the world No 1 haemorrhaging points each week, Sabalenka claimed her fourth title of the season at the Wuhan Open to reduce the deficit by another1000 points, cutting her rival’s lead yet further from 1069 to just 69 points.
That puts Sabalenka, remarkably, right on the shoulder of Swiatek with the regular season heading towards a rapid conclusion. The race for the No 1 ranking, as it did last year, will go all the way to the WTA Finals in Riyadh, which takes place in just under three weeks’ time.
Unlike last time around, however, it is Sabalenka with all the momentum and the advantage heading into the season’s showpiece event.
As undefeated champion from 2023, Swiatek is defending 1500 points at this year’s Finals. The Belarusian, on the other hand, is only protecting 625, having lost a round-robin match and then falling in the semi-finals to the Pole twelve months ago.
The pressure on Swiatek will also be greatly intensified, as failing to win the tournament as an undefeated champion opens the door for Sabalenka to pip her rival to the post. The world No 1 has also not played since a disappointing quarter-final exit at the US Open back in early September, with the WTA Finals looking set to be her only tournament between now and the end of the season.
It would be a fascinating reversal of events last year, should Sabalenka wrestle top spot back off Swiatek at the last possible juncture, just as the Pole did to her in 2023.
Heading into Riyadh at the start of November, there will be two key questions. Firstly, how well will Sabalenka deal with the pressure of being within striking distance of a long-coveted yet so far unachieved career aim? Secondly, what sort of form will Swiatek be in, given that she won’t have played competitive tennis for nearly two months by the time the Finals come around?
If recent form and momentum remain crucial barometers here, then it would be difficult to bet against the Belarusian ending this season as the best WTA player in the world. After all, she arguably already has been for much of this year, even if the rankings don’t yet reflect it.
Should she achieve this, though, there would still be some way to go before Sabalenka gets near a consecutive 50-week stretch as world No 1, let alone two of them.
For this reason, and countless others, Swiatek’s recent supremacy is already an unmovable legacy of women’s tennis – one that is baked into WTA history.
Yet there can now be little denying that the future looks to be significantly more competitive than the past two-and-a-half years.
Swiatek isn’t going anywhere soon, and will remain one of the best players in the world for some time yet.
But the apparent arrival of Sabalenka at the peak of her powers has fundamentally shifted the dynamic at the top of the WTA. With the Belarusian undoubtedly the best hard-court player on tour, by some distance, the current world No 1 will soon have to grapple with the prosect that her era of total dominance may soon be coming to an end.
