ST PETERSBURG, FL, USA - One of the most decorated champions in women's tennis finally cracked the world's Top 3 this week, as Elena Dementieva inched past Jelena Jankovic to become the new No.3 on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Singles Rankings as of April 6, 2009.
Dementieva, who had spent an improbable 27 non-consecutive weeks as the No.4 player in the world - two weeks in the fall of 2004 and 25 more since the US Open in 2008 - achieved her new career-high ranking after a fourth round finish at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami last week; Jankovic, who goes from No.3 to No.4, was a finalist at the prestigious event last year but fell in the second round this year.
The 27-year-old is now the sixth Russian ever to rank inside the Top 3, after Anastasia Myskina, Maria Sharapova, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Nadia Petrova and Dinara Safina. Sharapova is the only one of them to have reached No.1; Myskina, Kuznetsova and Safina have been No.2, while Petrova peaked at No.3.
Other movements within the Top 10 were Vera Zvonareva and Venus Williams switching spots, with Zvonareva going from No.5 to No.6 and Williams going from No.6 to No.5, and Victoria Azarenka - who won the Sony Ericsson Open - rising from No.10 to a new career-high of No.8, pushing Kuznetsova from No.8 to No.9 and Petrova from No.9 to No.10. Serena Williams, Safina and Ana Ivanovic remained No.1, No.2 and No.7, respectively.
The two biggest movers within the Top 50 were Iveta Benesova, who rose from No.31 to a new career-high of No.25, and Li Na, who surged from No.40 to No.29; both Benesova and Li reached the quarterfinals in Miami, the Czech losing to Venus Williams and the Chinese falling to Serena Williams.
