BREAKING NEWS: Aryna Sabalenka joins tennis greats after lasting whole of 2025 in number one ranking
Aryna Sabalenka has enjoyed another brilliant year at the top of women’s tennis.
She has added numerous titles to her growing collection, which has seen her retain her number one ranking throughout the year, virtually unchallenged. In doing so, she becomes the third woman this century to hold the number one ranking spot for every week of the year.
Sabalenka first reach the summit of tennis back in September 2023 following from her US Open final defeat to Coco Gauff. She only held it for a couple of months before Iga Swiatek stole it back off her after triumphing in the WTA Finals.
The Pole would then hold onto this prestigious accolade right until October 2024, where a hugely successful end spell saw the Belarusian catch up and surpass her on-court rival.
This was through winning her maiden US Open title and clinching a third consecutive Wuhan Open victory. Since then, she has not looked back, sitting on top of the tree while looking almost unshakable. The 27-year-old has another chance to add to her tally in the upcoming WTA Finals in Riyadh, where she will be looking for her first title.
Sabalenka joins the greats
Holding the number one ranking every week in a calendar year is not a common achievement. Only Serena Williams and Ashleigh Barty have managed to complete this unprecedented feat in the 2000s. In Willams’s case, this record spanned over multiple years.
The American rose back up to the number one spot ahead of a scintillating period where she won four WTA 1000 events on the spin with a second French Open title put in the mix. Into 2014 she remained firmly on top throughout.
While her Grand Slam form waned slightly, the ranking points she earned from the end of 2013 kept her above the rest. She won three WTA 1000 events, while ending the year with the US Open and WTA Finals success.
From the start of the 2014 US Open, Williams commenced a 33-match winning streak in Grand Slam matches which saw her assert her dominance even further on the WTA tour. She won four consecutive major titles, before bowing out in the 2015 US Open semi-final. She followed that up with more deep runs and titles in 2016, where her number one label would eventually slip off.
German star Angelique Kerber jumped above her after coming out on top at Flushing Meadows. Williams was on top of the pile for a record-equalling 186 weeks, tied only with Steffi Graf. She did not move from her perch in 2014 and 2015, something Sabalenka will have ambitions of matching.
Kerber and Williams would trade the number one spot for about six months before a whole heap of new faces came in and stole the show. One of them was Aussie star Barty, who sat at the top for the whole of 2021.
This could have been longer, with the rankings frozen with her up in first due to COVID-19. When play resumed in August 2020, she did not feature. She returned to the court in 2021 where she was upset in the quarter-finals of her home event.
She reacted to this by winning the WTA 1000 event in Miami before following that up with a title in Stuttgart and a final defeat to Sabalenka in Madrid. Her second Grand Slam title at Wimbledon kept her flying high, with a success in Cincinnati an ominous warning sign to her competitors.
Her last singles defeat came in the US Open third round. She would then go and win the title in Adelaide before finally getting over the line in the Australian Open. She would surprise the tennis world by retiring from the sport, eventually losing her number one status to Swiatek a couple of months later.
