Iga Swiatek becomes 6th youngest player to finish World No. 1 for consecutive seasons

Published at :November 9, 2023 at 8:49 AM

Modified at :January 14, 2024 at 1:01 AM

(Courtesy : CNN)

She earlier lost the top spot to Aryna Sabalenka.

Polish tennis star Iga Swiatek has once again secured the World No. 1 spot in the WTA Rankings, replacing Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka. The Polish international defeated Jessica Pegula in the season-ending WTA Finals on Monday (November 8th) 6-1 and 6-0, making her the sixth youngest player to finish the season as the No. 1 women’s singles player back-to-back.

She is only older than Chris Evert, Steffi Graf, Monica Seles, Martina Hingis, and Caroline Wozniacki since the WTA Rankings were introduced in 1975.

After her defeat in the fourth round of US Open earlier this year, four-time Grand Slam champion Swiatek lost her position atop the WTA Rankings to Sabalenka. Despite having a chance to maintain her ranking, Sabalenka was defeated by Swiatek in the semifinals, which allowed Swiatek to regain the No. 1 spot.

Sabalenka could have retained her top spot by defeating Swiatek. This marks the second time in her career that Sabalenka will finish the year in second place; the first time was in 2021. The Polish youngster consistently outplayed the powerful Sabalenka from the baseline, winning more games (16-13) while committing fewer unforced errors (23-10).

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The 22-year-old dropped just one game to defeat Pegula and clinch her seventh title of the year in under an hour, extending her winning streak to 11 matches and improving her record to 68-11 in 2023. After postponement of the match by one day, Swiatek broke Pegula’s serve five times and won the last eleven games in a 59-minute encounter to secure her first WTA Finals championship in Cancun, Mexico.

She also became the youngest WTA Finals champion, only older than Petra Kvitova, who achieved the feat at the age of 21 in 2011.