WTA Rankings Report – Aug. 10, 2020

The first movement in the rankings in five months signals what hopefully will be a solid stretch of tennis over the next two months.

And the big mover is Fiona Ferro, who won the first tournament back in Palermo as an unseeded player.

The rankings are definitely going to be strange – especially as the Tour moves into the “Cincinnati”-US Open bubble.

Players can preserve their 2019 results from tournaments they either don’t play, or don’t do as well in as they did one year ago.

And because there are no ITF tournaments for the women to play, the only opportunities to move up in these early days are going to be at the WTA-level events, which are limited to a fairly small group of players.

The practical application of that is that players won’t drop precipitously in the rankings from one week to the next, if they posted a big result the previous year and didn’t defend it. They will only drop as a result of other players rising.

Anett Kontaveit (EST): No. 22 ========> No. 20 (The Palermo finalist jumps back into the top 20 for the first time since last September).

Fiona Ferro (FRA): No. 53 ========> No. 44 (Ferro moves into the top 50 for the first time, and reaches a career high with her second career title. Her first came in Lausanne a year ago. She faces Aliona Bolsova, the last into the main draw on ranking, in the first round in Prague).

Camila Giorgi (ITA): No. 89 ========> No. 71 (Giorgi impressed before a home-country crowd in Italy last week, blasting her way to the semifinals before losing 7-5 in the third to Ferro. She had been up a set in that one).

*The 28-year-old’s return to action in Palermo was a very good one. And she looked ripped (Screenshot: WTATV.com)*

Aliaksandra Sasnovich (BLR): No. 119 ========> No. 104 (From a career high in singles of No. 30 after the 2018 US Open, the Belarussian had fallen down in the rankings. This is a nice boost, although the turnaround to get to the qualifying in Prague was a little too quick and she lost in the second round there).

Kaja Juvan (SLO): No. 121 ========> No. 111 (the 19-year-old moves to within five of her career high after qualifying and taking out No. 2 seed Marketa Vondrousova in the first round in Palermo).

Elisabetta Cocciaretto (ITA): No. 157 ========> No. 144 (Also 19, the Italian moves into the top 150 for the first time after an impressive turn in Palermo. She also reached the doubles final with Martina Trevisan. That jumped her doubles ranking more than 200 spots, to No. 244).

Sara Errani (ITA): No. 169 ========> No. 150 (The former French Open finalist never gave up, even when a severe case of the service yips had her serving underhand for a period last year. She defeated Sorana Cirstea and Kristyna Pliskova in marathons before falling in the quarterfinals. A year ago, she was ranked No. 241 and in the fall, was playing $25,000 ITFs in Spain).