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The “final” WTA Tour rankings of the year are really two weeks’ worth of rankings, as the WTA did not publish rankings last Sunday in the middle of the WTA Tour Finals.

The year-end event had been pushed back a few days, with the BJK Cup finals and final WTA event of the season ongoing the previous week.

It includes the big leaps made possible by the number of ranking points on availability during the Finals.

(Note: most of these leaps in the rankings are not reflected in the WTA’s just-published Nov. 22 numbers. They didn’t release Nov. 15 rankings on the regular schedule. Clicking on that date gets you there now, sort of ? They’ve retrofitted it to reflect the results of the WTA Finals, perhaps to get things back on track so that it all runs smoothly in 2022. Long story short: we’ve done the rankings this week to reflect the changes in the last two weeks).

For the complete WTA rankings update, click here.

ON THE UPSWING

= Career High

Garbiñe Muruguza (ESP): No. 5 ========> No. 3 (Muguruza’s supreme effort in winning the WTA Finals in Guadalajara have her back at No. 3 for the first time since Aug. 2017 – shortly before she became No. 1 for the first time).

Anett Kontaveit (EST): No. 8========> No. 7 (Kontaveit’s run to the WTA Finals moves her up a spot to another career high, at No. 7. She has … some year to live up to as she undertakes 2022. On the plus side, much of what she has to defend is at the tail end of the season. So there’s plenty of time to buttress that in the meantime).

Paula Badosa (ESP): No. 10 ========> No. 8 (When Badosa was in the medi-hotel in Melbourne, isolated because of COVID in January, she likely couldn’t have imagine the year would play out as it has. Super breakthrough).

Simona Halep (ROU): No. 22 =========> No. 20 (Halep didn’t finish the tournament in Linz, but she still got back into the top 20. This will be the 10th consecutive time in her career that the Romanian has finished in the top 20. Of course, in eight of those years, she finished No. 1 or No. 2).

Alison Riske (USA): No. 73 =========> No. 51 (A great late-season push after dealing with plantar fasciitis and other injuries means Riske will finish in the top 50. She wins the tournament in Linz and rises 22 spots).

Jaqueline Cristian (ROU): No. 100 =========> No. 71 (She got more pub for wearing the Dracula cape in Cluj than her tennis. But going from lucky loser to the Linz final two weeks ago lifts her to a career high, and will make Slam qualifying a thing of the past).

Anna Bondar (HUN): No. 107 =========> No. 90 (Another one who’s had a great late-season run, the 24-year-old from Hungary lifts herself into the top 100 for the first time by winning the biggest title of her career at the Buenos Aires WTA 125. And she also can look forward to … not grinding it out in the Melbourne qualies. She will be making her Grand Slam debut in January. Bondar is an impressive 62-27 on the season, at the various levels).

Wang Xinyu (CHN): No. 128 =========> No. 99 (The 20-year-old from China jumps into the top 100 by qualifying and reaching the Linz quarterfinals. She is playing a $100K ITF in Dubai this week).

Diane Parry (FRA): No. 149 =========> No. 115 (New career highs are weekly occurrences for the 19-year-old these days. She hits another after making the semis at the Santiago ITF, and added more at the Montevideo WTA 125K this week where won the title not only not losing a set – but never losing more than three games in any set).

Laura Pigossi (BRA): No. 218 =========> No. 191 (Pigossi, a bronze medallist in doubles at the Olympics, has been making moves on the late-season South American circuit and breaks into the top 200 for the first time).

Irina Fetacau (ROU): No. 241 =========> No. 209 (The 25-year-old Romanian also breaks into the top 200 for the first time, after winning the $25K in Daytona Beach two weeks ago).

Veronica Cepede Royg (PAR): No. 249 =========> No. 205 (The 29-year-old vet made the Santiago ITF final – her career high of No. 73 was in Aug. 2017).

Emma Navarro (USA): No. 284 =========> No. 236 (Navarro, a 20-year-old who began the season ranked No. 491, moves up nearly 50 spots to a career high after winning the Orlando ITF the first week of November. She has cut her ranking in half).

Katie Swan (GBR): No. 283 =========> No. 239 (Once considered one of Great Britain’s top prospects, the 22-year-old has dealt with a lot of injuries. But in winning an ITF tournament two weeks ago she takes a big step towards her career high of No. 163).

Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva (AND): No. 373 =========> No. 252 (The 16-year-old from Andorra – who won the Australian Open juniors in 2019 at age 14 – leaps 126 spots after winning an ITF in Brazil two weeks ago and then reaching the semis of the WTA 125 in Uruguay last week. Needless to day, it’s a career high).

Allie Kiick (USA): No. 279 =========> No. 255 (The young lady has been through the mill in 2021. But she made the final at the ITF in Orlando, along with the second round at Daytona Beach, and adds some points).

ON THE DOWNSWING

One Jabeur (TUN): No. 7 =========> No. 10 (By not making the WTA Finals, Janeur finds herself passed in the rankings by Swiatek, Badosa and Kontaveit. But she’ll finish in the year-end top 10. Which is impressive).

Elise Mertens (BEL): No. 16 =========> No. 21 (Mertens reached the WTA doubles final, but she drops 120 points in singles and finishes out of the top 20)

Ekaterina Alexandrova (RUS): No. 30 =========> No. 33 (Drops 50 points and loses in the first round in Linz).

Océane Dodin (FRA): No. 88 =========> No. 101 (Dodin will find herself on the fault line for the AO if she doesn’t find some points in the next few weeks. She lost in the first round in Linz, after qualifying and making the quarterfinals there a year ago).

Stefanie Voegele (SUI): No. 131 =========> No. 147 (Voegele qualified and won a round at Linz in 2020, so those points drop. Her career high of No. 43 came … eight years ago this week).

Timea Babos (HUN): No. 143 =========> No. 161 (Babos has been a very low-profile figure in recent months on the WTA Tour, and has been playing lower-level ITFs only since last month. She retired in her first-round match on clay in Budapest, the week after Wimbledon, and wasn’t seen for more than three months).

Vitalia Diatchenko (RUS): No. 136 =========> No. 171 (Diatchenko won a WTA 125 in Taipei two years ago last week. Without dropping a set, too. So those points drop. Her career high of No. 71 came … seven years ago this week).

Coco Vandeweghe (USA): No. 151 =========> No. 173 (Vandeweghe is playing World Team Tennis this week. But two years ago, she got to the final of a big Challenger in Houston, Texas. So those points are lost).

WTA statement on Peng Shuai just words, but deeds promised if necessary

Shuai Peng (CHN): No. 281 =========> No. 307 (Very much in the news these days, with the tennis world and beyond concerned, Peng hasn’t played since before the pandemic. But she still has this ranking, which is slowly dropping).

Mari Osaka (USA): No. 513 =========> No. 527 (Osaka has called it a day, but she’s still on the rankings list).