Sabalenka's missed opportunity
Before the start of Wimbledon, we knew it would not be an easy task for Swiatek to maintain her position as the WTA ranking leader, as she has not fared well on grass courts so far. However, the Pole confirmed that she is making progress on the surface and reached the semi-finals of a Grand Slam tournament in London for the first time.
Defeat in the quarter-final against Elina Svitolina meant that if Sabalenka beat Jabeur in the semi-finals, she would become the new number one in the WTA rankings. That did not happen. The Belarusian once again mentally underperformed, leaving the Pole to remain the leader of the WTA ranking for the next few weeks.
The second half of July is a time when there are not many tournaments of interest to players at the top of the WTA ranking. Swiatek will appear at a tournament in Warsaw to play in front of her home crowd. Sabalenka will probably not play until August 7th at the WTA 1000 in Montreal. Unless she asks for a wild card for the WTA 500 tournament in Washington, which will start at the end of July, but she will rather focus on preparing for the 1000-ranked tournaments.
Few points to defend before US Open
Swiatek's lead over Sabalenka is close to 500 points, so this is a sizeable margin for the coming weeks, given that there will be no high-ranking tournaments and the Pole will be able to score extra points in Warsaw, where she lost in the quarter-finals a year ago.
It is also good news for the Pole that she recorded poor starts in Toronto and Cincinnati a year ago. There, she won only one match each and finished both tournaments in the third round (she had a bye in the first round). This means that, counting these tournaments, she will be defending just over 200 points. The situation is slightly worse for the Belarusian, who reached the semi-finals in Cincinnati. It is very possible that the Pole will remain the leader of the ranking until the start of the US Open, which begins on August 28th.
At the moment, Swiatek is guaranteed a place at the top of the WTA ranking until the start of the tournament in Montreal, until August 7th. This will already give her a minimum of 71 weeks at the top position. This will equal Karolina Wozniacki's result in the all-time ranking.
