This Week's WTA Rankings: Angelique Kerber Increases Lead at No. 1, Dominika Cibulkova Qualifies for Singapore - UBITENNIS
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This Week’s WTA Rankings: Angelique Kerber Increases Lead at No. 1, Dominika Cibulkova Qualifies for Singapore

What would usually be a quiet week with WTA International events in Linz, Tianjin, and Hong Kong was spiced up by the likes of Angelique Kerber, Garbine Muguruza or Agnieszka Radwanska being in play, and the tight Race for Singapore coming to a conclusion.

By Jakub Bobro
6 Min Read

Although ATP was the main story of the week with the Masters 1000 in Shanghai, WTA still brought entertaining matches from Linz, Tianjin, and Hong Kong. It also brought a lot of question marks about the players’ fitness, with Agnieszka Radwanska giving a walkover in the quarterfinals after losing only 5 games combined in her first two matches, Muguruza retiring in the final set of her semifinal match, Kerber losing very easily to Daria Gavrilova. Despite that, Kerber’s lead as No. 1 was increased to 1,260 points over No. 2 Serena Williams, who is 1,000 points ahead of No. 3 Agnieszka Radwanska. Simona Halep is stable at No. 4, but less than a 1,000 points separates No. 5 Karolina Pliskova and No. 9 Johanna Konta, so the year-end championships can shake up this lower part of Top 10 a lot.

This week’s title winners were mostly surprising, with Dominika Cibulkova taking Linz, thus qualifiying for Singapore Caroline Wozniacki won Hong Kong as the No. 5 seed, getting back to Top 20, and Peng Shuai won Tianjin as a wild card, receiving 2 walkovers on her way to the title.

Movers of the Week

The ranking changes inside the Top 100 have been quite hostile this week, so this Mover of the Week is outside the Top 100, but definitely deserves this title. Peng Shuai moved up 74 spaces from No. 182 to No. 108 after winning the WTA International in Tianjin, beating Alison Riske 7-6(3) 6-2 in the finals. This is Peng’s best result since her famous semifinal run at the 2014 US Open, and her first WTA title in her career. This sets up Peng Shuai well for a Top 100 comeback in the 2017 season.

WTA Rankings

These are the best 20 female players as of October 17th 2016, two weeks before the end of the 2016 WTA season:

  1. Angelique Kerber (GER) – 8,310
  2. Serena Williams (USA) – 7,050
  3. Agnieszka Radwanska (POL) – 6,050
  4. Simona Halep (ROU) – 5,097
  5. Karolina Pliskova (CZE) – 4,440
  6. Garbine Muguruza (ESP) – 4,425
  7. Madison Keys (USA) – 3,797
  8. Dominika Cibulkova (SVK) – 3,625
  9. Johanna Konta (GBR) – 3,455
  10. Petra Kvitova (CZE) – 3,390
  11. Carla Suarez Navarro (ESP) – 3,230
  12. Svetlana Kuznetsova (RUS) – 3,180
  13. Victoria Azarenka (BLR) – 3,061
  14. Venus Williams (USA) – 2,940
  15. Elina Svitolina (UKR) – 2,511
  16. Roberta Vinci (ITA) – 2,290
  17. Caroline Wozniacki (DEN) – 2,220
  18. Timea Bacsinszky (SUI) – 2,188
  19. Elena Vesnina (RUS) – 2,093
  20. Samantha Stosur (AUS) – 2,090

Race to Singapore Rankings

The Top 8 players in the rankings play the year-end championship in Singapore, which starts on October 23rd. Remember that Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka already confirmed that they will not play any more events this year, so they are not included in these rankings. There is also WTA Elite Trophy in Zhuhai, which is contested by players between No. 9 and No. 19, and one wild card, which has already announced to be Shuai Zhang, currently No. 22 in the Race.

  1. Angelique Kerber (GER) – 8,000 – Qualified
  2. Agnieszka Radwanska (POL) – 4,975 – Qualified
  3. Simona Halep (ROU) – 4,728 – Qualified
  4. Karolina Pliskova (CZE) – 4,100 – Qualified
  5. Garbine Muguruza (ESP) – 3,737 – Qualified
  6. Madison Keys (USA) – 3,637 – Qualified
  7. Dominika Cibulkova (SVK) – 3,625 – Qualified
  8. Johanna Konta (GBR) – 3,455 – (Plays Moscow, still in contention for Singapore, Qualified for Zhuhai)
  9. Carla Suarez Navarro (ESP) – 3,170 – (Plays Moscow, still in contention for Singapore, Qualified for Zhuhai)
  10. Svetlana Kuznetsova (RUS) – 3,080 – (Plays Moscow, still in contention for Singapore, Qualified for Zhuhai)
  11. Petra Kvitova (CZE) – 2,770 – Qualified for Zhuhai
  12. Elina Svitolina (UKR) – 2,272 – Qualified for Zhuhai
  13. Venus Williams (USA) – 2,241 – Qualified for Zhuhai
  14. Caroline Wozniacki (DEN) – 2,241 – Qualified for Zhuhai
  15. Roberta Vinci (ITA) – 2,190 – Qualified for Zhuhai
  16. Timea Bacsinszky (SUI) – 2,188 – Qualified for Zhuhai
  17. Elena Vesnina (RUS) – 2,093 – In contention for Zhuhai
  18. Samantha Stosur (AUS) – 2,090 – In contention for Zhuhai
  19. Barbora Strycova (CZE) – 2,070 – In contention for Zhuhai
  20. Kiki Bertens (NED) – 1,817 – In contention for Zhuhai

In this last week before the year-end championship, there is a WTA Premier in Moscow, where the race for the final spot in Singapore between Johanna Konta, Carla Suarez Navarro and Svetlana Kuznetsova will conclude, with one of the trio going to Singapore, and the other two being the favorites in Zhuhai. There is also a WTA International in Luxembourg, but points from there will not count into the Race for Singapore, only Zhuhai.

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