Talk About Tennis 2.0

I'm fine with Badosa as #2.
Sabalenka at #2 bothered me - because no player beats her/him self more than she does.

I also think it's questionable that Raducanu's ranking is RISING, though she's not done anything to contribute toward that - it's simply that a few players above her have lost points.

In the end, though, all players are ranked where they should be, I suppose, and are deserving of the ranking they have, based on the current system.

I saw this list of Paula's accomplishments on another board.

Indian Wells W1000 *2021
Sydney W500
*WTA Finals SF
Roland Garros QF
Madrid SF
Indian Wells SF
Miami QF
Belgrade W250
2 further slam second weeks

I high lighted her three titles.

Those are several solid months.

Let's compare that to Iga's results from the last 52 weeks:

Madrid R16 (L Barty)
Rome W
Roland Garros QF (L Sakkari)
Eastbourne R16 (L Kasatkina)
Wimbledon R16 (L Jabeur)
Olympics R32 (L Badosa)
Cincinnati R32 (L Jabeur)
US Open R16 (L Bencic)
Ostrava SF (L Sakkari)
IW 2021 R16 (L Ostapenko)
WTA finals RR (L Sakkari, Sabalenka)
Adelaide SF (L Barty)
Australia open SF (L Collins)
Dubai R16 (L Ostapenko)
Qatar W
IW 2022 W
Miami W
Stuttgart SF+

Overall record (including this week) 55-14

And now Iga's record vs all current top 10 players + everyone she has lost to in the last 52 weeks

Badosa 1-1
Krejcikova 2-0
Sakkari 2-3
Sabalenka 1-1
Kontaveit 3-2
Pliskova 1-0
Collins 1-1
Muguruza 0-1
Jabeur 1-2

Overall against the top 10: 12-11. Relatively few matches, though.

Bencic 1-1
Ostapenko 0-3
Kasatkina 3-1

Suliso wrote: ↑Sat Apr 23, 2022 7:37 am And now Iga's record vs all current top 10 players + everyone she has lost to in the last 52 weeks

Badosa 1-1
Krejcikova 2-0
Sakkari 2-3
Sabalenka 1-1
Kontaveit 3-2
Pliskova 1-0
Collins 1-1
Muguruza 0-1
Jabeur 1-2

Overall against the top 10: 12-11. Relatively few matches, though.

Bencic 1-1
Ostapenko 0-3
Kasatkina 3-1

0-3 Ostapenko.... so power is her kryptonite?

If you can apply the power first...
But it would like like that, although she has losses to Kasatkina (no power there) and Bencic (medium power). I say her greatest asset is her speed and mobility. She flows on court.

I didn't realize they were counting two Indian Wells. It makes sense, just didn't occur to me. It'll be interesting to see how Paula does from here on out. I believe it's the first time in her career where she'll start defending major points. To me, she's been showing a bit more frustration on court these days then she did previously.

I like Paula a good deal. But I definitely don't think of her as a top 3 player right now. I think her results on paper probably come off much better if I hadn't watched most of the matches. I have a feeling if she wasn't winning so many of her more impressive wins in 3rd set tiebreaks, she'd feel different to me. Some of those are okay, but it's rarely a comprehensive win over someone more impressive for her. I can point to other player's having matches like that easier than I can for her. With Paula, it was basically IW last year where that happened, but almost nowhere else and still she won the title in a 3rd set tiebreak. There's probably a few too matches as well that I think she should've lost to younger players that didn't know how to close out a match, along with being surprised when she doesn't go in and get a straight set win over X player. Doesn't leave me thinking of her as a Top 3 player. That might come eventually.

It obviously didn't happen, but beating Aryna in straight sets today, even if it was a battle, but getting it done in straights, is the kind of thing that would likely start to change how I look at her in terms of ranking and as a threat.

It's difficult to make a strong argument for anyone at #2 right now. Maybe Krejcikova, but really only on the strength of her RG result...

Which also works the other way. You can make an argument for #2 for almost 5 different players. It is that close right now.

Some interesting factoids regarding WTA rankings

Weeks at #1

Steffi Graf 377
Martina Navratilova 332
Serena Williams 319
Chris Evert 260
Martina Hingis 209
Monica Seles 178
Ashleigh Barty 121 (not including the frozen period!)
Justine Henin 117
Lindsay Davenport 98
Caroline Wozniacki 71
Simona Halep 64
Victoria Azarenka 51
Amelie Mauresmo 39
Angelique Kerber 34
Dinara Safina 26
Naomi Osaka 25
Tracy Austin 21
Maria Sharapova 21
Kim Clijsters 20
Jelena Jankovic 18
Jennifer Capriati 17
Arantxa Sanchez Vicario 12
Ana Ivanovic 12
Venus Williams 11
Karolina Pliskova 8
Garbine Muguruza 4
Iga Swiatek 2
Evonne Goolagong Cawley 2

Top 10 consecutive streaks at #1

Steffi Graf 186
Serena Williams 186
Martina Navratilova 156
Ashleigh Barty 114
Chris Evert 113
Steffi Graf 94
Monica Seles 91
Martina Navratilova 90
Steffi Graf 87
Martina Hingis 80

There have been 28 WTA #1 players including 21 (!!!) in the 21st century (including Hingis and Davenport who straddle the boundary)

That Venus is so far down the list often makes me not care too much about the “weeks at number one” records. Especially when you look at who is above her

Some more statistics albeit not directly about rankings.

Most WTA finals per season with GS titles in parenthesis

2000: Martina Hingis 9 (0)
2001: Lindsay Davenport 7 (0)
2002: Serena Williams 8 (3)
2003: Kim Clijsters 9 (0)
2004: Lindsay Davenport 7 (0)
2005: Kim Clijsters 9 (1)
2006: Justine Henin 6 (1)
2007: Justine Henin 10 (2)
2008: Serena Williams 4 (1), Dinara Safina 4 (0), Jelena Jankovic 4 (0)
2009: Victoria Azarenka 3 (x), Elena Dementieva 3 (0), Svetlana Kuznetsova 3 (1), Dinara Safina 3 (0), Serena Williams 3 (2), Caroline Wozniacki 3 (0)
2010: Caroline Wozniacki 6 (0)
2011: Caroline Wozniacki 6 (0), Petra Kvitova 6 (1)
2012: Serena Williams 7 (2)
2013: Serena Williams 11 (2)
2014: Serena Williams 7 (1)
2015: Serena Williams 5 (3)
2016: Dominika Cibulkova 4 (0)
2017: Elina Svitolina 5 (0)
2018: Petra Kvitova 5 (0)
2019: Ashleigh Barty 4 (1), Karolina Pliskova 4 (0)
2020: Simona Halep 3 (0), Ashleigh Barty 3 (0)
2021: Ashleigh Barty 5 (1)
2022: ???

So, for the 20th century, we are on pace for one new #1 per year., especially if you count the century as beginning in the year 2001.