{"id":179837,"date":"2025-10-05T04:35:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T04:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/179837\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T04:35:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T04:35:10","slug":"can-iga-swiatek-close-world-no-1-gap-to-aryna-sabalenka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/179837\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Iga Swiatek close world No 1 gap to Aryna Sabalenka?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iga Swiatek is safely through to the fourth round of the China Open, and it is hard to see who will stop the world No 2 and top seed at the WTA 1000 event this week.<\/p>\n

After setting several impressive milestones during her opening win over Yuan Yue on Saturday<\/a>, the Pole was on court for just six games in her third-round match on Monday, with Camila Osorio retiring after the opening set of their encounter.<\/p>\n

Victory for Swiatek<\/a> powers her into a fourth-round contest against 16th seed Emma Navarro \u2014 an opponent she holds a 2-0 head-to-head against \u2014 and puts her in a strong position to continue a potential challenge to Aryna Sabalenka\u2019s<\/a> world No 1 ranking.<\/p>\n

Here, we look at how close Swiatek can now get to challenging her greatest rival in Beijing this week.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka\u2019s status<\/p>\n

Sabalenka has been ranked as the world No 1 since October last year, and still has a commanding lead as things stand.<\/p>\n

However, the Belarusian will likely be affected by rules regarding WTA Ranking \u2018mandatory\u2019 events<\/a>, and will drop 215 quarter-finalist points from last year\u2019s China Open after her withdrawal from this year\u2019s tournament.<\/p>\n

Currently on 11,225 points, Sabalenka will drop to 11,010 points when the WTA Rankings officially drop post-tournament.<\/p>\n

Heading into the China Open, Swiatek held 8,433 points.<\/p>\n

Tennis News<\/p>\n

Emma Raducanu misses rankings chance as she suffers painful Jessica Pegula China Open loss<\/a><\/p>\n

How has Coco Gauff\u2019s serve performed at the China Open \u2013 and is it a concern?<\/a><\/p>\n

How much ground can Swiatek make up?<\/p>\n

Having been provisionally suspended during the China Open last year, Swiatek has no points to defend at the tournament in 2025 \u2014 something that gave her a huge advantage from a rankings perspective.<\/p>\n

The world No 2 cannot directly return to the top of the WTA Rankings with a strong run in Beijing, but has already begun to make some ground on Sabalenka after her opening two victories.<\/p>\n

With 120 points to her name, thanks to reaching round four, Swiatek is already up to 8,533 points in the WTA Live Rankings.<\/p>\n

That places her within 2,500 points of Sabalenka \u2014 still a significant gap \u2014 but Swiatek can make up significant ground, especially considering that the world No 1 has 1,000 points to defend as the Wuhan Open champion next week.<\/p>\n

Should the Pole defeat Navarro in Wednesday\u2019s fourth-round clash and reach the last eight, that would move her to 8,648 points, up 215 points in the WTA Rankings.<\/p>\n

However, if she were to progress to the semi-final, she would move up to an impressive 8,823 points, and she would hit the 9,000-point milestone with a run to the final.<\/p>\n

A runner-up finish would put Swiatek on 9,083 points, while a run to the title would place her on 9,433 points.<\/p>\n

Those results would put the Pole within 2,000 points of Sabalenka in the WTA Rankings, something that would be significant heading into the Wuhan Open.<\/p>\n

With Sabalenka defending 1,000 points and Swiatek defending no points, it would be mathematically possible for the six-time Grand Slam champion to regain the No 1 ranking at the event.<\/p>\n

Swiatek\u2019s China Open ranking point possibilities<\/p>\n

Champion: 9,433 (+1,000)
Runner-up: 9,083 (+650)
Semi-final: 8,823 (+390)
Quarter-final: 8,648 (+215)
Round 4: 8,553 (+120)<\/p>\n

Read Next: Shanghai Masters Draw: Jannik Sinner & Novak Djokovic on collision course as Carlos Alcaraz profits<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iga Swiatek is safely through to the fourth round of the China Open, and it is hard to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-179837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}