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Given that the most prestigious WTA events of the year have now finished, technically speaking, the official WTA rankings adjustments have come to a close. However, that’s only true on paper, to be perfectly honest. And I say that because there are still many WTA tournaments to be played to close out the 2022 season. This is different from the ATP Tour where there are no more ATP-level events following the end of the ATP Finals.
Because of this, there are still weekly adjustments to the WTA rankings, even if the rankings’ end date coincides with the WTA Finals. As for the events last week that have impacted the updates for the November 21st changes, there is actually just one tournament to speak of. That tournament is the WTA 125-level event that was played in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
And it was a fantastic week for a couple of players who competed in this particular tournament, as you’ll soon find out via the updates displayed below.
Week Commencing November 21st – WTA Rankings Updates
Contents
The WTA rankings changes were announced yesterday – November 21st. Like every other week throughout the WTA season, the updates took into account the points that were won and lost over the previous seven days. Of course, the updates also reflect points that were earned in any respective Challenger events too. So on that note, let me now take a look at the most successful players over the previous seven days on the WTA Tour.
The Week’s Biggest Climbers
There are two players inside the WTA’s top 100 that have posted double-digit gains for the week. And to give you the specific information right off the bat, these two players are Danka Kovinic and Xinyu Wang. As it happens, if you tuned in for last week’s updates, Kovinic was also listed as one of the main risers in the week previous too. So to say that she is enjoying a successful spell on the WTA Tour would be a bit of an understatement.
As if last week’s rise of 8 places was impressive enough, Kovinic has backed this up by posting another rankings rise of 14 spots. She has achieved this by making the finals of the WTA 125 event held in Argentina last week, picking up plenty of points in the process. And her rise of +14 places takes her to a new position of number 57. If she keeps this up, she could well crack the WTA top 50 before the end of the 2022 season too.
Following on from Kovinic, the second biggest climber of the week is Xinyu Wang. This player wasn’t involved in the WTA 125 event in Buenos Aires. Instead, she was busy winning an ITF event held in Japan. During this week, Wang was able to string together a set of great wins to ultimately take the title. In doing so, she has now risen by 12 spots to her newfound ranking of number 87. Since Wang is now getting up there in the WTA rankings, she may well qualify directly for some of the upcoming WTA 125 events too.
Needless to say, this would be a huge positive in her quest to keep climbing the rankings to close out the 2022 season.
The Week’s Biggest Losers
Nobody wants to find themselves in the category of the ‘week’s biggest losers’. However, as is the structure of the sport of tennis, whenever there is a winner, there has to be an opposing loser. And according to the WTA rankings changes that were released yesterday, there is one player that has fallen out of the top 100 in quite spectacular fashion. Prior to the rankings updates as of November 21st, the exciting youngster, Diane Parry, was number 79 in the WTA rankings.
She is still super young, of course, yet the fact that she had been able to secure a stable spot inside the WTA’s top 100 was a huge achievement for the French player. However, the loss of rankings points over the last seven days has seen her fall by a whopping 26 places. Of course, this means that she is now ranked outside of the WTA’s top 100 at her new ranking of 105. But just to clarify, this isn’t technically down to poor performances in any recent tournaments. It’s actually due to the fact that she simply hasn’t competed since the end of October 2022.
Adding to this, in an interesting turn of events, Parry achieved her career-high ranking of number 58 when the rankings were updated on October 24th. With that said, the new ranking of 105 is almost 50 places lower than the career high of that date. This just goes to show that if you don’t constantly play or perform well, it is easy to slip down the WTA rankings.
Major Rankings Stories
Since the WTA rankings changes have stopped impacting those players that are inside the top 50, I actually want to end by concentrating on the ending positions for the top 10. Of course, this has been known since the WTA Finals points were added to each player’s totals following the end of the event in Fort Worth, Texas. Yet I didn’t technically focus on this in last week’s edition of the WTA rankings stories. Therefore, I’d like to quickly cover these changes right now.
Below, you can see the official ending positions for the top 10 on the WTA Tour for the 2022 season:
- Iga Swiatek
- Ons Jabeur
- Jessica Pegula
- Caroline Garcia
- Aryna Sabalenka
- Maria Sakkari
- Coco Gauff
- Daria Kasatkina
- Veronika Kudermetova
- Simona Halep
As noted previously, these rankings will not change until the WTA level events (above 125-level) begin once again. Since the next WTA event that is ranked above this level begins on December 29th, this provides a bit of a grace period for these players to relax and unwind. After all, the WTA tournament schedule is pretty hectic for such top players. And I for one believe that they deserve a bit of a break from top-level competition for a while.
For those who are interested, the next tournament that is sanctioned above the 125-level is the WTA 500 event held in Australia – known as the United Cup.
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