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The WTA rankings haven’t undergone any drastic changes this week. And that’s because there are just two tournaments that have been played last week. One of them has yet to finish too, and this tournament is the WTA Finals. The only other tournament that was played (and completed) last week was the WTA 125 event known as the Dow Classic. This event was held in the United States, in Michigan, yet this event has naturally been overshadowed by the End of Year Finals.
I guess the cool thing about the event in Michigan, however, is that many big names went there who hadn’t qualified for the WTA Finals. So despite it being a 125-level event, it was actually full of great players. With this said, my goal here is to reveal the latest ranking updates for the WTA Tour as of November 7th. So without further ado, let me cover the key areas regarding such changes.
Week Commencing November 7th – WTA Rankings Updates
Contents
As I write this article, the two players that have made it into the title match at the WTA Finals include Sabalenka and Garcia. However, the respective points that these two players receive will not be included in their rankings until next week. I say this to clarify any doubts about the rankings updates as they stand at the time of writing. With that said, this doesn’t mean that the rankings haven’t adjusted whatsoever this week.
In fact, if you look a little further down the WTA top 100 rankings, there has been no shortage of adjustments! But as usual, let me work my way through the key categories relating to this week’s rankings updates for the WTA Tour.
Movement Inside the Top 10
Amazingly, there hasn’t been a single shift in the top of the WTA rankings this week. Not one player has changed in ranking since the last update on October 31st. This means that the top five players on the WTA Tour remain Iga Swiatek, Ons Jabeur, Jessica Pegula, Coco Gauff, and Maria Sakkari, respectively. But interestingly, the two players that have made it into the WTA Finals title match are not inside the top five.
To remind you once again, the two WTA players who are competing for a shot at the end-of-year title tonight include Sabalenka and Garcia. Sabalenka is currently number 7 in the rankings, whereas Garcia is number 6 in the rankings. And whatever happens in the match tonight, there will be some changes relating to the ranking for these two players next week. With that said, the two players that fell short at the semi-final stage included Swiatek and Sakkari.
They will both pick up points, of course. Yet since Swiatek is the world number 1 by quite some distance, she won’t drop as a result of losing in the semis. Sakkari on the other hand could well move a spot or two depending on how things work out.
The Week’s Biggest Climbers
I know – the top 10 this week hasn’t exactly been a thriller concerning the movement of players. In fact, it’s probably one of the only weeks out of the entire season where zero movements inside the top 10 are even possible. Therefore, you are probably pretty eager to read about some actual movement in the WTA rankings for November 7th. So let me introduce the two players that have both experienced +15 jumps over the last seven days.
These players are Jasmine Paolini and Elisabetta Cocciaretto – two Italian players, as it happens. The +15 spot jumps for both of these players aren’t actually a result of last week’s play either. Both women managed to win an ITF title that concluded on October 30th, prior to the updates last week. Yet the points accumulated have had the most impact on the rankings updates this week, with Paolini and Cocciaretto now holding spots 63 and 64, respectively.
The third biggest climber of the week was the Belgian player, Ysaline Bonaventure. She also played in an ITF event that concluded on October 30th, yet she lost in the finals of the event rather than winning it like the two Italians. However, in doing so she has enjoyed a +11 rankings change to her new position of 94.
The Week’s Biggest Losers
There were two players this week that have sustained double-digit ranking drops. Unfortunately for them, these two players are Maryna Zanevska and Danka Kovinic. Zanevska takes the undesirable title of the loser of the week since she has dropped 17 spots to number 81 in the WTA rankings. With that said, she hasn’t played and performed poorly – she just hasn’t competed for two straight weeks. And perhaps even tougher for her, the last time she competed she made the finals of a WTA 125 event in France
As for Kovinic, her drop is also a result of not playing in recent times. In fact, her last tournament was in Italy, which was played between September 26th and October 1st. She did play well in the WTA 250 event, making the semis before losing to Sakkari. However, she is another victim of failing to compete regularly, resulting in a drop of 11 spots to her new position of 79.
This just goes to show how cutthroat and difficult it can be to maintain a WTA ranking at the highest level.
Major Rankings Stories
For my ‘major ranking story’ of the week, we actually need to jump outside of the top 100. Amazingly, the American, Taylor Townsend, has jumped by a phenomenal 55 spots in the space of one week. She managed to win an ITF that concluded on October 30th, beating two top 100 players in the process. As a result of this win, she has reached a new ranking of 131. This might not seem all that significant compared to other names mentioned here. However, this is one of the biggest WTA ranking surges I’ve seen in recent times.
And this has been possible since the stars have aligned nicely for Townsend. She has accumulated points without any major points falling away from her performances at this time last year. So well done to her, and I’ll be eager to see if she can crack the WTA top 100 soon!
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