Elena Rybakina will have to earn the No. 1 ranking on the court. The Kazakh depends on herself to become the thirtieth tennis player to top the women’s tour rankings. All she needs is to beat China’s Qinwen Zheng this Wednesday in the US Open quarterfinals.
Aryna Sabalenka, the current queen, will not make it easy for her to overtake her in the rankings. She showed it yesterday by defeating Linda Noskova, the newly crowned Wimbledon champion, 7-6(1), 3-6 and 7-6(7), in the super “tie break”.
The top seed in the draw was able to come back from a 4-2 deficit in the tie-break set.
Sabalenka is 976 points behind the Kazakh player. The player from Minsk is penalized by not being able to add points at the New York tournament as the defending champion. Although what really takes its toll on her is her poor form from the month of April onward, when she has not added a single trophy to her record.
A quarterfinalist at the Mutua Madrid Open and eliminated in the third round in Rome, she did not get past the round of 16 at Roland Garros. And things went even worse for her at Wimbledon, where she was knocked out in the fourth round by Naomi Osaka. Before that, a semifinal in Berlin with Jessica Pegula as her executioner.
On the verge of 100
Sabalenka is already the sixth player with the longest stay at the top, with a total of 99 weeks. The magic number 100 is no longer in her hands.
Since Serena Williams (2012-14), no professional has been able to win three consecutive times on the courts of Flushing Meadows. She is two victories away from doing so.
That is the only thing that will allow her to keep the number 1 ranking. And Pegula and Coco Gauff find themselves in the same situation. Their dream of being the best inevitably depends on lifting the United States Open champion’s trophy. Coco already knows that feeling. She did it in the 2023 edition.
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