WTA rankings: Rybakina to No. 1, a career best

One. Elena Rybakina climbs to No. 1 in the WTA rankings, a career best at 27 that pushes Aryna Sabalenka down to No. 2, in a week that reordered the list without a single tour-level title changing hands.

The move at the top is a pure reshuffle, not a result. Rybakina rises from No. 2, a place she had already held for 23 weeks as her career high, to No. 1, and Sabalenka drops from the top spot to No. 2 after three years there. Neither played a match that counted toward this week's WTA rankings; the point swing between them did the rest. The only titles of the week came at Challenger level, so the new order at the top of the game arrived without a final being played by either woman in it.

The rest of the list moved plenty. Qinwen Zheng climbs 69 places, from No. 121 to No. 52, the biggest jump in the WTA rankings this week, and a reminder of the No. 4 she reached back in June 2025 rather than any new peak. Marta Kostyuk moves up one place to a career-best No. 10 and enters the top 10 for the first time, while Amanda Anisimova drops the other way, from No. 10 to No. 11. Paula Badosa continues her climb back up the list, from No. 87 to No. 70; Jasmine Paolini eases into the top 20 at No. 20; Karolina Pliskova returns to the top 50 at No. 45.

At the top of the WTA rankings, Rybakina now sits at No. 1 without having played a match that fed into it, the best ranking of a career that had stalled at No. 2. Her arrival also means two Ukrainians in the top 10, up from one last week, Elina Svitolina at No. 7 and Kostyuk at No. 10 alongside her. Nothing here was won on court this week; it was written by the numbers already banked, and it still moved a No. 1.

Ranking tale, 14 September 2026, sources: WTA rankings, api-tennis