WTA Rankings: Aryna Sabalenka sets up No 1 showdown with Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff +1

Aryna Sabalenka is now within touching distance of returning to No 1 in the WTA Rankings, but she will only get a chance to surpass Iga Swiatek at the WTA Finals.

Reigning Australian Open and US Open champion Sabalenka won her fourth title of the year and third in the space of two months when she defeated Qinwen Zheng in the final of the Wuhan Open.

It meant her points tally was boosted by 1,000 points and, with Swiatek not playing at the WTA 1000 event, the gap to the Pole was reduced to just 69 points.

The good news for Swiatek – who started her 125th week at No 1 on Monday – is she will remain at No 1 for another three weeks with the top two in the rankings only returning to action at the season-ending event in Riyadh.

But the bad news for the five-time Grand Slam winner is the fact that she has 1,500 points to defend as she won the title undefeated last year while Sabalenka will only drop 625 points.

There is a different name at No 3 as Coco Gauff moved up one spot after her to the semi-finals in Wuhan and she is followed by Jessica Pegula, Elena Rybakina, Jasmine Paolini, Qinwen Zheng, Emma Navarro, Danielle Collins and Beatriz Hadid Maia.

Qinwen Zheng finished runner-up to Sabalenka in Wuhan and boosted her points tally by 180 points, but she is still well off Paolini.

Hadid Maia moved up two places as she returned to the top 10 for the first time since June 2023 while Barbora Krejcikova dropped three places to No 13.

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The likes of Pegula, Paolini, Zheng, Navarro and Hadid Maia are all set to feature at WTA events before the season-ending WTA Finals.

The rest of the top 20 is relatively unchanged while former world No 2 Ons Jabeur has dropped out of the top 30 after slipping four places to No 33 as she remains inactive due to injury.

Not too far behind is Wang Xinyu as she is rewarded for her run to the quarter-final with a 12-place jump to No 39.

Grand Slam winners Emma Raducanu and Naomi Osaka were both inactive last week, but the players around them lost spots so the former moved up three spots to No 54 while Osaka is up one place to No 57.

Hailey Baptiste was one of the biggest winners in the top 100 as the American moved up 22 spots to a new career-high No 80 after reaching the round of 16 in Wuhan.