By Chris Oddo | Monday August 22, 2016
Serena Williams and Angelique Kerber will take their battle for the No. 1 ranking to New York next week.
Photo Source: AP
Angelique Kerber didn’t overtake Serena Williams for the No. 1 ranking on Sunday in Cincinnati, but despite a loss in the final to Karolina Pliskova, the German inches ever closer to becoming the 22nd No. 1 in WTA history.
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Kerber is now just 190 points behind Williams in the rankings:
But the 190 point gap doesn’t tell the whole story. With 780 points coming off of Williams’ ranking ledger at the U.S. Open the American, now in her 307th week at No. 1 and 184th week consecutively, has work to do to maintain her top spot.
Kerber will only have to defend 130 third round points from last year’s U.S. Open, so the math is skewed in favor of Kerber when one takes these numbers into account.
Freelance writer Tumaini Carayol did some number crunching and posted this breakdown on Twitter last night:
The key takeaway: Serena needs to reach at least the semifinal to keep the No. 1 ranking for what would be a record 187th consecutive week. This will make for a very entertaining fortnight in New York, no doubt. And yes, the run-up should be fantastic, too.
In other rankings news, Karolina Pliskova rose 6 spots to No. 11 in the world as a result of her Cincinnati title.
Elena Vesnina of Russia rises a spot to make her Top 20 debut at No. 20.
On the ATP side, Marin Cilic rises to No. 9 in the world from 14 on the strength of his Cincinnati title.
Borna Coric jumps nine spots to No. 40 in the world based on his first Masters 1000 quarterfinal appearance in Cincinnati. Grigor Dimitrov, a semifinalist at Cincinnati, rises ten spots to No. 24, while American Steve Johnson rises two spots to No. 21 and becomes the 14th American to hold his countries’ top ranking.
Murray Closing in on Novak in Race to London Standings
Andy Murray, with a runner-up performance at the Western and Southern Open, closes the gap on Novak Djokovic in the Race to London standings. This is the same ranking table that will decide the year-end No. 1 ranking, so Murray is a lot closer to being No. 1 than many people realize.