Court list: how have the positions of our tennis players in the world rankings changed?

The fourth and last Grand Slam tournament of the season, the US Open— has significantly changed the situation in world tennis. The first racket of the world was replaced in the women's round: Elena Rybakina beat Arina Sobolenko, and Mirra Andreeva retained her chances to compete for leadership and practically guaranteed herself participation in the Final tournament. Yannick Sinner is still the first in the men's ranking, but Alexander Zverev, who won in New York, has already led the championship race and may oust the Italian from the top by the end of the year. Russians also have important changes.: Daniil Medvedev rose to sixth place and continues to fight for the Final tournament, while Karen Khachanov soared to 24th position after the US Open semifinals and moved closer to Andrey Rublev, who occupies the 25th line.

Rybakina's dream come true

Before the start of the US Open, Elena was 434 points behind Arina, but she was in a winning position due to their results at this tournament last year. Sobolenko defended the title here, and with it 2 thousand points, while Rybakina "burned" only 240 points for the 1/8 finals, that is, the fourth round. It was enough for the representative of Kazakhstan to reach the semifinal stage in New York to guarantee herself the first place in the ranking.

But Elena, who had not previously played at the US Open even in the quarterfinals, exceeded the minimum plan and became the champion! Thus, Rybakina won both hard "Slams" this year, and Sobolenko defeated both in three sets in the final. Elena defeated her in the final of the Final WTA Championship-2025. Now Rybakina has to defend 1,500 points (for three group stage wins plus the matches she won in the semifinals and finals), and this is the main thing she needs to confirm before the end of the season.

We went into a set: how the Russians performed at the US Open

Khachanov will rise to 24 positions in the ranking, Andreeva reached the quarterfinals, and Rybakina, a native of Moscow, took the third "Helmet"

Of the smaller ones, in the second half of October, Elena "burns" 500 points for the title in Ningbo, 215 points for the quarterfinals in Wuhan and another 195 points for the semifinals in Tokyo. It is doubtful that this year Rybakina will play a tournament in the Japanese capital, which ends a week before the start of the Final Championship in Indian Wells, but she may well add points at major Chinese competitions.

Of course, Elena has not yet guaranteed herself the first place at the end of the season, but thanks to her victory over Arina in the final of the US Open, she has a decent margin. In the main ranking, they are separated by 2,026 points, which is a beautiful number this year. In the championship race, which allows you to additionally navigate the rating layouts for the end of the year, Rybakina is ahead of Sobolenko by 1007 points. "" Considering that there are two more "thousandth" in China, a number of "five hundredths" in different countries and the Final tournament ahead, it is quite realistic to recoup this difference, but whether Arina will be able to spend the end of the season so much better than Elena is a question. Besides, Sobolenko has never performed well at the first autumn "thousandth anniversary" held in Beijing. Her best result there was the quarterfinals in 2018, 2023 and 2024, and last season the Belarusian skipped this tournament altogether.

Mirra's small chances and Noskovaya's "legal cheat"

Theoretically, Jessica Pegula, Coco Gauff and Mirra Andreeva can also compete for the first place in the rating, but the chances of this this year are not very high. For convenience, let's look at the points in the championship race again, since it is virtually impossible to overtake Rybakina before deducting 1,500 points for the Final one in 2025, and by the time this deduction happens, the championship race and the rating of 52 weeks will be equal. Elena currently has 7492 points, and Arina has 6485. Jessica is third with 5,825 points, while Coco is slightly ahead of Mirra (5,614) with 5,654 points. Thus, any of them needs to score 1,500+ points more than Rybakina by the end of the year. Again, there is a possibility, but it is low.

As for the top eight of the race, it also includes Elina Svitolina (4809), Karolina Mukhova (4400) and Linda Noskova (4234). At the same time, the Czech, as the Wimbledon champion, can feel comfortable in the matter of fighting for tickets to the Final tournament. Obviously, not only Rybakina, but also Andreeva will easily get into Indian Wells, finishing the season in the top 7 of the race, and Linda will take the slot, even if she drops in the ranking. It is enough for the current Grand Slam champion to be in the top 20 to play in the Final. This exception is granted to a maximum of one player per year, but since Elena and Mirra won't need it, Linda can definitely count on it. This means that Marta Kostyuk (3851) and Ige Sventek (3584), who are currently ninth and tenth in the race, need to overtake not only Noskova, but also Mukhova or someone else in order to qualify for Indian Wells, in short, finish at least seventh.

By the way, Kostyuk made her top-10 debut at the end of the US Open, where she lost in the fourth round to Noskova. The Ukrainian tennis player is objectively having a great season (especially its clay segment) and has now risen to tenth place for the first time in her career. Marta ousted Amanda Anisimova from the top ten, who did not defend points for last year's final of the home "major".

Match shot: Khachanov moves closer to the final of the US Open

Mirra Andreeva failed to defeat Coco Gauff again

Zverev can become the first racket of the world

In the men's ranking, Alexander Zverev, who became the champion of the US Open, suddenly became a very real contender to reach the first place in the ranking. Until recently, it seemed like a utopia — even after the German's victory at "Roland Garros" and reaching the Wimbledon final, where he lost to Sinner, Yannick was too far ahead, almost in space. In addition, Alexander failed the "masters" in Toronto and Cincinnati, that is, he clearly still had a recession, which had not really happened before during the current season. However, the Italian did not play a single tournament after Wimbledon due to problems with his right knee, missing the US Open, while the German found his tennis during the American "Slam" and eventually managed to win the title.

Zverev is still far enough from the first place, lagging behind Sinner in the 52 weeks ranking by almost 2,000 points, which are given for winning the "major" (9690 against 11,500). But again, let's turn to the championship race and see a completely different picture here. Alexander took over the lead after the US Open, scoring 8,650 points! That's 700 more than Yannick's. You don't have to look at everyone else this year. Ben Shelton, who was third and lost the final in New York to Zverev, scored 4430 points, while Carlos Alcaraz scored 4050. In short, at the end of the season, the fate of the first place will be decided in the fight between Zverev and Sinner.

It is clear that if Yannick wins one tournament after another, he will not give Alexander the lead in the ranking for 52 weeks, but the key word here is "if". Yes, the hard court is Sinner's favorite part of the season (however, Zverev is also very good there). But this year, the Italian has already faced various health problems twice — first he felt sick in the heat during "Roland Garros", then his knee gave out. Will he reach such a peak immediately after that, so that he can collect both the "Masters" (in Shanghai and Paris) and the Final home in Turin at the end? If Sinner fails somewhere or withdraws again, Zverev may well take advantage of this.

At the end of the season, Yannick needs to defend a maximum of 500 points for the title in Vienna, 1,000 for a victory in Paris and 1,500 for a triumph in Turin. Alexander scored 330, 400 and 200 points at the same tournaments last year, respectively. It is there that a German of Russian origin may have a chance to become the first racket of the world. And it's ironic that more than four years ago, a terrible leg injury sustained in the semifinals of "Roland Garros" – 2022 with Rafael Nadal, deprived Zverev of a chance to rise to the top of the ranking that summer, and now the leg injury that Sinner had gives Alexander a chance to become the best in the world after all.. Of course, Zverev himself is showing excellent results this season, but it is objective to win "Roland Garros" and the US Open with a healthy Yannick (as well as Carlos Alcaraz) it would have been much more difficult for him. In addition, the Italian himself would have scored ranking points in these and other tournaments anyway, which would also have significantly reduced Alexander's chances of leadership.

It should also be noted that Shelton rose to the fourth place in the rating for the first time in his career — previously his best result was fifth place. Daniil Medvedev pulled up a couple of positions and became the sixth racket of the world, and in the championship race he is eighth, maintaining a good chance of getting to the Final tournament. Francis Tiafoe, who beat out Medvedev in New York and reached the semifinals, was in the top 8 for the first time (previously he was at most tenth). But Novak Djokovic dropped out of the top ten for the first time since July 2018. Having failed to protect his points from last year's semi-final, the great Serb dropped from fifth place to 12th. As for Karen Khachanov, who reached the semifinals, he shot up 24 places and is now the 26th racket of the world, next to Andrei Rublev (25th). This will allow Karen to get among the 32nd seeds at the Shanghai "Masters" and start there from the second round.