10,000-GA! Swiatek surpasses 10,000 ranking points for first time since last March

Iga Swiatek strengthens her hold on the No. 1 ranking this week following her triumph in Doha, boosting her ranking points total from 9,770 to 10,300 and crossing the 10,000-point threshold for the first time in almost exactly 11 months, since Indian Wells last March.

The 22-year-old won the title in Doha last year, too, but it was upgraded from a WTA 500 event to a WTA 1000 event this year, meaning she added even more points to her ranking this time.

This week is Swiatek’s 28th career week with 10,000 or more points on her ranking. The first 27 came consecutively from September 12th, 2022 (after she won the US Open) to March 19th, 2023 (after she fell in the semifinals of Indian Wells as the defending champion).

Since 2016, she’s one of only two women to have had 10,000 or more points on their ranking at any time—the other woman is Ashleigh Barty, who was beyond that threshold for a total of 10 weeks in 2021.

Before Barty, the last woman to do it was Serena Williams in 2015.

With her triumph in the Qatari capital, Swiatek not only became the first woman ever to win the Doha title three times, she became the first woman to win any WTA event three years in a row since Serena three-peated at another WTA 1000 stop, Miami, from 2013 to 2015.

The Pole also snapped a three-match losing streak to Elena Rybakina in the final, battling back from a double break down at 4-1 in the first set to beat the 2022 Wimbledon champion, 7-6 (8), 6-2.

“I’m just proud of myself and the team, because it hasn’t been easy for us after Australian Open,” Swiatek said. “I’m happy that I kept working and just didn’t really think about too many stuff during this week and just focus on the right things, because I think it was the key.

“Coming here and being kind of the double defending champion wasn’t easy," the world No. 1 added. "So I’m happy that I have this experience already, and hopefully I’m going to use it.”

A little further down the WTA rankings, Karolina Pliskova rises from No. 59 to No. 36 after her run to the semifinals in Doha—the former No. 1 has now more than halved her ranking over the last two weeks, having risen from No. 78 to No. 59 the week before after winning her first WTA title in more than four years in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

With her 6-3, 7-5 first-round win over China's Zhang Shuai in Dubai on Monday, the Czech has now won 10 consecutive matches in 14 days (she had to withdraw before her Doha semifinal with a back injury).

And Erika Andreeva makes her Top 100 debut, rising from No. 106 to No. 99 after qualifying and reaching the second round in Doha. She now joins younger sister Mirra in the Top 100—Mirra is currently No. 38.