By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Tuesday May 23, 2023
Welcome – finally! – to the Top four, Elena Rybakina.
Kazakhstan’s finest women’s singles player rises up to No.4 in the world for the first time after claiming the title at Rome, which means she’ll be the No.4 seed in Thursday’s Roland-Garros draw.
Rybakina, now just 115 points behind No.3 Jessica Pegula, slides ahead of No.5 Caroline Garcia and No. 6 Coco Gauff, who each drop a spot in this week’s rankings.
Now 28-7 on the season with titles at 1000-level events at Indian Wells and Rome, 23-year-old Rybakina enters RG with a 7-4 lifetime record that includes a trip to the quarterfinals in 2021, when she defeated Serena Williams.
The rest of the Top 10 remains relatively stable, as Iga Swiatek begins her 60th week atop the WTA rankings with a strong but slimming 1399 point lead over World No.2 Aryna Sabalenka.
Sabalenka Leads the Race
As far as the race to the year-end championships goes, Aryna Sabalenka is leading by 564 points over Rybakina, and Swiatek 1695 back, in third place. Here is how the rest of the Top 10 of the race stack up:
Sabalenka, 4840
Rybakina, 4276
Swiatek, 3145
Pegula, 2315
Bencic, 1790
Krejcikova, 1731
Kvitova, 1635
Kudermetova, 1498
Gauff, 1435
Ostapenko, 1396
Top 20 debut for Zheng Qinwen
China’s Zheng Qinwen now has a ranking that is smaller than her age. The 20-year-old moves into the Top 20 this week, rising two spots to a career-high No.19. Zheng is 16-9 on the season and will look to improve upon her round of 16 showing from last year in Paris, which came on her main draw debut.
Jelena Ostapenko, a semifinalist in Rome, rises three spots to No.17 – the 25-year-old Latvian is also No. 10 in doubles.
Kalinina Biggest Riser
The Biggest riser inside the WTA’s Top 50 is Anhelina Kalinina, who jumps 22 spots to No.25 on the strength of her trip to the final at Rome. The 26-year-old had never been to the final of a 1000 level tournament prior to last week.
Kalinina has doubled her career total of Top 20 wins in 2023, winning four and losing three against such competition (she was 4-11 prior to 2023).
The biggest jump in the Top 100 belongs to France’s Diane Parry, who rises 32 spots to 77 – the 20-year-old, a former World No.58, won the Trophée Clarins title last week.
Andreescu drops 10
Bianca Andreescu drops ten spots, from 31 to 41, and therefore will not be seeded at Roland-Garros. The 22-year-old Canadian has never been past the second round in Paris in three previous main draw appearances.
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