Iga Swiatek doesn't seem to be bothered by not securing the Year-End No. 1 ranking as the Pole declares finishing at No. 2 "a great achievement."
For the second year in a row, Aryna Sabalenka won the Year-End No. 1 award.
In October 2024, Swiatek was replaced by Sabalenka at the world No. 1 spot. Since then, there haven't been any changes on the throne.
This past season, Swiatek plummeted to No. 8 in June - which was her lowest ranking since early 2022. However, the Pole quickly fixed her ranking after collecting 2,000 points for winning Wimbledon, as well as enjoying triumphant runs in Cincinnati and Seoul.
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While Swiatek did extremely well in the second part of 2025, Sabalenka's lead was simply too big. The 24-year-old did have an outside chance to finish the year as the top-ranked player, but ultimately it was the Belarusian. Heading into 2026, the reigning US Open champion is 2,475 ranking points ahead of the Pole.
Swiatek: Finishing at No. 2 is a great achievement
I think finishing as No. 2 is a great achievement. I think the level were all at got more equal. I think you could see that, especially during the WTA finals, basically, any of us could win this tournament, we really played a lot of tight matches," the reigning Wimbledon champion told CLAY.
In an interview conducted last month, Swiatek's coach Wim Fissette underlined that returning to the No. 1 spot in 2026 would be one of the Pole's biggest goals.
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"The priorities are not changing. Iga wants to be the best in the world. We want to win a Grand Slam, hopefully more than one. We intend to be as close as possible to the No. 1 in the ranking," Fissette told Polish tennis journalist Dominik Senkowski last month.
Swiatek has had 125 weeks as the top-ranked player in the game, while Sabalenka entered her 69th week as the world No. 1 this Monday.
