Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek have for the second consecutive year failed to play the minimum number of mandatory WTA 500 events and now they have been punished.

Last year, the top two players in women’s tennis broke the rule that requires all players to enter at least six WTA 500-level tournaments and it had a major impact on the WTA Rankings as Sabalenka replaced Swiatek at No 1 after their zero pointers were added.

And now both have again been docked points, but this time it didn’t affect their rankings with Sabalenka staying at No 1 and Swiatek keeping her second place.

Both players have entered only three WTA 500 tournaments so far this year and the zero pointers have been implemented for the October 20 rankings update.

Zero pointers come into effect when players fail to enter the mandatory number of tournaments, as they earn zero points for a WTA 500 event with points from another tournament removed, which is usually a higher-level event.

Sabalenka has been docked 10 points while Swiatek lost 65 points, but they keep first and second place in the rankings.

WTA Year-End No 1 Battle

The Belarusian remains the world No 1 as she now sits on 10,390 points with Swiatek on 8,703.

Sabalenka now leads the six-time Grand Slam winner by 1,687 points and for now she is assured of being the year-end No 1 for a second year in a row with only the WTA Finals still to come.

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A maximum of 1,500 points are available for an undefeated champion so even if Swiatek goes on to win the tournament without losing a match Sabalenka would stay ahead of her in the rankings.

However, both are still likely to be hit by another zero pointer next week, but it is once again unlikely to have too big an impact on the rankings with Sabalenka set to keep her big points lead.

Gauff And Co’s Punishment

But they were not the only top WTA stars who were handed zero pointers as world No 3 Coco Gauff (-10), No 4 Amanda Anisimova (-10) and No 8 Madison Keys (-54) have also been punished, but none of them lost out in the rankings due to the rule.

Gauff is well adrift of Swiatek in the Race To Riyadh, which is a key indicator for the year-end rankings, while she is only 676 points ahead of Anisimova in the battle to finish the year as the American No 1.

Keys dropped one place from No 7, but she was always going to move down a spot on the back of Elena Rybakina’s title run at the Ningbo Open.