Aryna Sabalenka celebrated a special milestone this Monday after entering her 50th consecutive week as the world No. 1 on the WTA rankings list.
After landing her maiden US Open title in 2023, Sabalenka also reached the world No. 1 position for the first time in her career. In her first stint at the top spot, the Belarusian spent a total of eight weeks there and just narrowly missed out on finishing 2023 as the Year-End No. 1.
On October 21st, 2024, Sabalenka regained the No. 1 spot from Iga Swiatek. And since then, no changes have happened at the throne.
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Before the 27-year-old Belarusian, nine players managed to spend 50 or more consecutive weeks at the top spot - Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf, Monica Seles, Martina Hingis, Serena Williams, Ashleigh Barty and Swiatek.
Can Sabalenka beat out Swiatek for the Year-End No. 1 award?
Sabalenka, who is not competing at the WTA 1000 tournament in Beijing, has 11,225 ranking points while Swiatek sits at No. 2 with 8,433. Since the Belarusian is set to drop some points after Beijing and the Pole will gain, the lead will be reduced - at least slightly.
Overall, Swiatek doesn't have many points to defend for the rest of 2025 due to the provisional doping ban she served around this time last season. On the other side, Sabalenka has 1,000 ranking points to defend at the Wuhan Open, which starts next week.
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In Beijing, Swiatek insisted that she wasn't giving too much focus on replacing Sabalenka at the top spot.
I already know that thinking about the rankings, it's not a way to go, no matter if you're No. 2 or no matter if you're No. 1. It's just kind of numbers. But it doesn't change the fact that you need to kind of feel the tennis and focus on the improvement on the court, then the results are going to come after that. For sure it's a different situation than last year when I wasn't really able to defend my No. 1, like earn it," Swiatek said when asked about her Year-End No. 1 battle with Sabalenka.
