Aryna Sabalenka surpasses 12,000 ranking points, the first woman since Serena Williams in 2015

She may not have come away with her first Wimbledon title this year, but after a semifinal showing at the grass-court major last week, world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka has hit an incredible ranking milestone.

She surpasses 12,000 ranking points for the first time in her career, going from 11,640 heading into Wimbledon to 12,420 now—she missed the tournament last year due to a shoulder injury, so she was only adding points to her total this year, and a semifinal earns 780 points.

And there’s more: Sabalenka is actually the first woman since Serena Williams in 2015 to surpass 12,000 ranking points.

Serena had 12,721 points during the two weeks of the 2015 US Open—the weeks of August 31st and September 7th, 2015—before dropping below the 12,000-point mark to 11,501 on September 14th, after falling in the semifinals in Flushing Meadows that year (having won the title in 2014).

And Sabalenka is now the first woman since then to cross 12,000.

Iga Swiatek came very close, peaking at 11,695 in 2024.

And there’s even more.

Sabalenka’s lead at No. 1 is now at a personal best of 4,751 points—she has 12,420 ranking points, while current No. 2 Coco Gauff has 7,669.

That’s the biggest lead a No. 1 has had over a No. 2 on the WTA rankings in almost two and a half years, since the week of February 20th, 2023, when then-No. 1 Swiatek led then-No. 2 Sabalenka by 4,800 points (10,900 to 6,100). That was the week of the WTA 1000 event in Dubai.

While Sabalenka added 780 points this week, as mentioned above, Gauff actually dropped some—she reached the fourth round last year, earning 240 points, but fell in the first round this year, earning only 10 points.

And so, the gap at the top of the WTA rankings increased by over 1,000 points this week—1,010 to be exact, from 3,741 to 4,751.

Sabalenka is one of the most dominant No. 1s in the last decade, thanks to her consistently excellent results over the last 12 months.

Between the end of Wimbledon last year and today, Sabalenka has won six of the 19 events she’s played—three last year at Cincinnati, the US Open and Wuhan, and three this year at Brisbane, Miami and Madrid.

In addition to that, she’s reached another four finals (Australian Open, Indian Wells, Stuttgart and Roland Garros), another four semifinals (Washington D.C., the WTA Finals, Berlin and Wimbledon) and another three quarterfinals (Toronto, Beijing and Rome) in that span.

That’s 17 times reaching the quarterfinals or better in 19 tournaments, her only pre-quarterfinal exits coming at back-to-back tournaments in the Middle East earlier this season, in Doha and Dubai.

Her win-loss record over the course of the last year is a sparkling 73-14 (.839) and she’s almost as sparkling against the best players in the world, the Top 10, going 16-4 against them in that span (.800).

As of now, the world No. 1 is scheduled to begin her summer hard-court season in Cincinnati. She just withdrew from Montreal due to fatigue.