WTA Tour – World Top Five Leading Ladies

Both Russian players Elena Dementieva and Dinara Safina who are in the fourth and fifth position respectively and whose career breakthrough year has been the present tour have shown incredible determination beating well-known opponents on all surfaces.  Dementieva, who is in her mid twenties reached this year a career high raking at the number four position and holds a singles record of 469-232 and she is also a gold medallist holder.  On the other hand, there is Dinara Safina who is only twenty-two years and already has eight single WTA titles and four ITF wins to her name.  Safina’s best performances have been at this year’s French Open final where she played Ana Ivanovic and at the recent US Open semi final.

Then we move to the top three standing where there are the best two female Serbian players Ivanovic, who has already been in the number one position and her partner,  Jankovic who has also had a spectacular year as her injuries stop troubling her. She has been able to improve her game while surpassing some of the best players in the tour. Currently, there is a point difference of approximately 400 (plus) between the number two and the number three and even a shorter gap between Jankovic and the number one leading lady, Serena Williams, who is up by not more than 125 points.

Once the former number one the Belgian Justin Henin announced her sudden retirement, a few months ago, the WTA rankings began to move up and down from that point forward. Players such; Maria Sharapova, Ana Ivanovic, Jelena Jankovic and now Serena Williams have occupied this position but for the shortest periods compare to the many weeks Justin retained her leadership. There is no doubt, this could be a healthy way to allow the new growing talent to pursuit the top positions but we have not yet seemed which of these ladies could become the best player to remember.

Currently, in the top five ranking there are still many uncertainties regarding injuries, program issues with some of the tournaments remaining, and even with the players not being constant at their play. Regardless of what happens next in the tour we would really enjoy seeing a new era where one of the female tennis players reacts and steps up as the new queen. Could this really happen? Perhaps not yet, as if we look back we see four different ladies winning this year’ Slams; Sharapova took the Australian Open, Ivanovic crowned herself in Paris, then Venus Williams retained her title at Wimbledon and Serena returned to the podium in New York City.   

The 2008 WTA tour will end within a couple of months therefore it is likely the rankings will not change much in the coming weeks, but one thing is certain and that is we hope for one of them to establish herself as other women have done it in the past...as we, the tennis fans, will like to see a new tennis legend rise to the top.