Ranking Reaction: Paula Badosa reaches new career-high of No. 5, Leylah Fernandez cracks Top 20

There were no WTA events this past week, but with points dropping off from last year’s event in Adelaide—which was a WTA 500—there are two very notable debuts on the WTA rankings this week.

Paula Badosa moves up to new career-high of No. 5
With her points from winning Adelaide last year dropping off, Iga Swiatek slips from No. 4 to No. 8 this week, and everyone in the No. 5 to No. 8 range last week moves up a spot. That didn’t result in any kind of breakthrough for Karolina Pliskova, Garbine Muguruza or Maria Sakkari, but it has for Badosa.

Badosa rises from No. 6 to No. 5 this week, becoming just the fourth Spanish woman to reach the Top 5 in WTA rankings history.

SPANISH WOMEN TO REACH TOP 5 IN WTA RANKINGS HISTORY (since 1975)
~ Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario (career-high No. 1 in 1995)
~ Garbine Muguruza (career-high No. 1 in 2017)
~ Conchita Martinez (career-high No. 2 in 1995)
~ Paula Badosa (career-high No. 5 in 2022)

Going into last year’s clay-court season, Badosa had never even been ranked higher than No. 67 at any point in her career. But she’s gone 45-14 since then, a stretch highlighted by her first three WTA titles (including Indian Wells last October) and her first Grand Slam quarterfinal (at Roland Garros last June).

One more Spanish woman, Carla Suarez Navarro, has reached the Top 10, and almost the Top 5—the seven-time Grand Slam quarterfinalist went as high as No. 6 in 2016.

US Open finalist Leylah Fernandez makes Top 20 debut
Swiatek isn’t the only player who dips down the rankings this week after Adelaide points fell off from last year—Belinda Bencic, who reached the final there, falls from No. 19 to No. 24, and Coco Gauff, a semifinalist there, goes from No. 17 to No. 20. And with that, another teenager makes a big move.

Fernandez, who took the tennis world by storm by reaching her first Grand Slam final at the US Open last year—stunning three Top 5 players along the way—moves up two spots from No. 21 to No. 19 this week, becoming just the fifth Canadian woman to reach the Top 20 in WTA rankings history.

CANADIAN WOMEN TO REACH TOP 20 IN WTA RANKINGS HISTORY (since 1975)
~ Bianca Andreescu (career-high No. 4 in 2019)
~ Eugenie Bouchard (career-high No. 5 in 2014)
~ Carling Bassett-Seguso (career-high No. 8 in 1985)
~ Helen Kelesi (career-high No. 13 in 1989)
~ Leylah Fernandez (career-high No. 19 in 2022)

Fernandez passes Gauff to become the second-highest-ranked teenager on the WTA rankings, after Emma Raducanu—the Brit is currently ranked No. 13.

Andy Murray, Thanasi Kokkinakis make welcome returns to Top 100
Though neither of them played this past week, both Murray and Kokkinakis move back into the Top 100 after some reshuffling on the ATP rankings, with Murray going from No. 102 to No. 95 and Kokkinakis from No. 101 to No. 94.

This is Murray’s first time in the Top 100 since he came back from his first hip surgery in June 2018—having been ranked No. 1 the last time he played before that at Wimbledon in July 2017, he was ranked No. 156 when he returned to the tour at Queen’s Club the next year, and now, after more than three and a half years and a second hip surgery, the three-time Grand Slam champion is back in the Top 100.

It’s been even longer for Kokkinakis—the Australian, who reached the Top 70 as a teenager in 2015, fell out of the Top 100 in February 2016 and was even unranked later that year and in 2017, and now, almost exactly six years later and after battling shoulder, abdominal and pectoral injuries, as well as a bout with glandular fever, he’s back in the elite.

And there’s one more ATP player who reached a new milestone after his own struggles with injury: Mackenzie McDonald, who went as high as No. 57 in 2019 before a hamstring injury ended his season after Roland Garros and caused him to drop as low as No. 272 in 2020, makes his Top 50 debut this week, rising from No. 56 to No. 49 after reaching the second round in Montpellier.