Some familiar names spent a lot of time there: Martina Hingis, Justine Henin and Serena Williams. Track who has made it to the top in women's tennis since 2000 in the chart below. The just-retired Dane Caroline Wozniacki didn't win a grand slam until the 2018 Australian Open, nearly eight years after she first reached No.1. If you haven't also won a major,it can feed the best-player-yet-to-win-a-major narrative. (His total of 19 majors, one shy of Roger Federer's record, has ensured his legendary standing in the game.)īut a world No.1 ranking can also be a burden. Major wins at Roland-Garros and the US Open in 2019 went a long way to drive him to the top again. The current men's world No.1, Rafael Nadal, has earned the year-end distinction for a fifth time. The season, officially at least, ended with the ATP Finals (Association of Tennis Professionals) in London in November and WTA Finals (the Women's Tennis Association), in Shenzhen in China, in late October. So how does the rankings system work? And what difference will a win or loss make for players at the Australian Open? 'You always dream about as a little kid,' she said after the match, 'but, for it to become a reality, it's incredible and not something that was even in my realm – we were aiming for top 10 this year.' In June 2019, her win against German Julia Gorges at the Nature Valley Classic in Birmingham – two weeks after her triumph at the French Open – tipped her into top place on the rankings. By the end of that year, she was entrenched inside the top 20. She cracked the top 100, at No.92, in March 2017 after winning her maiden WTA title in Kuala Lumpur. Three qualifying and three main-draw wins later, she was back in business with a handful of points – and a ranking of 623.īy the end of the year, she had halved her ranking. On the comeback trail in May 2016, Barty was unranked and threw caution to the wind by qualifying for a low-level $50,000 tournament in Eastbourne in southern England. Ashleigh Barty became the first Australian woman to make it to the top since Evonne Goolagong-Cawley in 1976 and she was the first Australian since Lleyton Hewitt in 2003.īarty’s storied rise, after a sabbatical that included a stint playing cricket, offers an interesting insight into the numbers behind tennis. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text sizeĪustralia celebrated its first world No.1 tennis player in 16 years last year.

Wta live tennis rankings