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Following on from what was a pretty remarkable Grand Slam in the form of Wimbledon, you might have thought that the WTA Tour would cool off to some degree. However, if you look back at the tournaments that were completed between Wimbledon and the date of the last rankings update, there were a total of three tournaments that were played and completed. Interestingly, in a similar fashion to the ATP Tour, the WTA Tour moved back to clay court events following Wimbledon.
As for the tournaments that were actually played, these were spread throughout Europe at multiple levels. This included a WTA 250 event in Hungary, a WTA 125 event in Romania, and a WTA 250 event in Italy. Of course, many of the top WTA players chose to compete in these events, with the exception of the ones that made a deep draw run at Wimbledon. And as a result of the three tournaments that were played, there have actually been some quite significant shifts in the WTA rankings for certain players.
Like always, my goal here is to bring you these updates and let you know who has shifted where on the WTA ladder.
WTA Rankings Updates – Week Commencing July 24th
Contents
As I do with each WTA rankings update, I shall start today by discussing the players that find themselves in the green position on the ladder. This means that their ranking has increased following their results from last week. In contrast, I will back this up by talking about the players who are unfortunately in the red zone, which means that their ranking has decreased based on the results last week. This is all discussed in detail below, so do read on and enjoy.
The Week’s Biggest Climbers – Baindl, Podoroska, and Day
Given that I am concentrating on the WTA top 100 for today’s update, I can inform you of three players that have made significant strides forward. As you can see, these players include Kateryna Baindl, Kayla Day, and Nadia Podoroska. However, of these three players, the one that has made the biggest leap in the WTA rankings is Kayla Day. Prior to the updates that were released this week, Day wasn’t even ranked inside the top 100. And interestingly, she didn’t compete in any of the three WTA-sanctioned events last week.
Instead, she competed in an ITF event in Canada, and she managed to win the event by toppling the 2nd and 5th seeds in the semis and finals, respectively. This has helped Day to shoot up the WTA rankings by 31 positions, taking her to 94 in the world. As for the next player in line, the 2nd biggest climber this week goes to Kateryna Baindl. The Ukrainian player competed in the WTA 250 event in Hungary last week. She made it all the way to the final before losing to Maria Timofeeva, and in doing so, she jumped 23 spots up the rankings to 77.
Of course, this leaves Nadia Podoroska as the third biggest climber of the WTA rankings this week. Podoroska has made a jump of 14 positions, taking her to 66 in the rankings following her performance in Hungary. She ultimately made the semi-finals before she also lost to Timofeeva, and this was enough to see her make a significant rankings leap this week.
The Week’s Biggest Fallers – Bronzetti, Pera, and Sasnovich
Keeping the focus on the WTA top 100, there are three players that have slipped down the rankings more than any other individuals this week. Once again, the red zone is never a territory where a professional tennis player wants to be hanging out, but that’s all part of the game concerning the WTA rankings updates. And on that note, it’s Bernarda Pera who tops the list in the red zone this week, as she has dropped 17 positions down to 56. Pera also played in the WTA 250 event in Hungary, although she lost her opening match, which resulted in a loss of points and the subsequent rankings slide.
Yet Pera isn’t alone in the double-digit rankings drop this week, for Bronzetti almost matched her with a rankings slide of 16 positions. Bronzetti was involved in the other WTA 250 event last week in Italy, yet she couldn’t capitalize on the home support. Unfortunately, she went out to Erika Andreeva in the first round, and this has seen Bronzetti tumble to 69 in the rankings as of the most recent update. This puts her not too far away from our third and final faller of the week, who is Aliaksandra Sasnovich.
Now, the good news for Sasnovich is that her rankings slide of 11 positions hasn’t come as a result of failing to perform in any of the three tournaments last week. She didn’t compete in any of them, yet the 12-month rolling WTA rankings have snatched points away from her as a result. However, it goes without saying that the 11-spot tumble to 75 in the world is going to hurt, and she will be eager to change her fortunes over the coming weeks.
Top Rankings Stories – Timofeeva up 100+ Places With Budapest Title Run
For my top rankings story of the week, you are going to see a name that has popped up already throughout these WTA rankings updates. As you can see above, Maria Timofeeva has been thrown into the spotlight this week, with good reason. Amazingly, in her WTA main draw debut, Timofeeva surged through the draw and captured her very first WTA title. And that’s not even the best part of the story. Timofeeva was thrown in as a lucky loser after she bowed out in the first round of qualifying. Nevertheless, she was clearly prepared to make the most of the opportunity she was given, and she ultimately won the WTA 250 event in Hungary.
By winning this tournament, not only does she become just the 4th lucky loser to win a WTA event of all time, but she’s also risen by 117 rankings spots too. This takes her from 246 up to 129, which is a staggering achievement, and I had to give her the recognition she deserves following the title run in Budapest.
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