Reigning Australian Open and Wimbledon champion Serena Williams replaced Dinara Safina as the No.1 player on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour on Monday, October 12, beginning her fourth stint and 73rd career week at the top.
Williams needed to do better than Safina at the China Open last week to retake No.1, and while she didn't exactly reach her expectations - she got to the third round, while Safina lost in the second round - it was enough to secure it.
Williams' first three stints at No.1 came between July 8, 2002 and August 10, 2003 (57 weeks), September 8 and October 5, 2008 (four weeks) and February 2 and April 19 of this year (11 weeks).
The pair's points total difference of five points (Williams has 7945 and Safina has 7940) represents the narrowest margin between No.1 and No.2 since the Tour switched to its current ranking system in 1996. The previous narrowest margin was 10 points, between then-No.1 Lindsay Davenport and then-No.2 Jennifer Capriati for nine weeks between November 5, 2001 and January 6, 2002. From the November 3, 1975 inception of the computer rankings until December 22, 1996, rankings were based on an averaging system, whereby the total number of points accrued was divided by a minimum divisor of 12 events (14 in 1996).
Another major move came from Agnieszka Radwanska, who returned to the Top 10 after reaching the final of Beijing, rising from No.11 to No.10 and bumping Flavia Pennetta from No.10 to No.11. Radwanska spent 35 weeks inside the Top 10 between July 7, 2008 and March 22, 2009 (dropping out for the 2008 US Open fortnight but spending all other weeks in that period inside the elite). She had been hovering between No.11 and No.14 ever since dropping out in March.
Also, Kateryna Bondarenko made her career Top 30 debut, rising from No.32 to No.29 after a second round showing in Beijing.
Check out this week's singles rankings and doubles rankings now.
