Swiatek spent 75 weeks on top spot consecutively from April 4, 2022 in the retirement of Ashleigh Barty up until September 10, 2023 before Aryna Sabalenka took over for eight weeks. But given the WTA Finals win, she returned to top spot. Albeit after spending most of the end of the season saying how it was a weight lifted off so in reality wasn’t too much of a big deal.
But she now joins a special group of players including Steffi Graf, Martina Navratilova, Serena Williams and Chris Evert to achieve 90 or more career weeks as World No.1 in WTA history since 1975. All of those higher in the list are seen as tennis legends so she is in good company.
Most weeks at No. 1 in WTA rankings history (since 1975):
377: Steffi Graf
332: Martina Navratilova
319: Serena Williams
260: Chris Evert
209: Martina Hingis
178: Monica Seles
121: Ashleigh Barty
117: Justine Henin
98: Lindsay Davenport
90: Iga Swiatek (and counting…)
Up until recently, Graf was the overall record holder for most weeks spent at No 1 in both men’s and women’s tennis as her tally of 377 had stood since March 1997, but Novak Djokovic surpassed that milestone in 2023 and he has also gone past the 400-week mark.
The four-time Grand Slam winner Swiatek is now just eight weeks behind Lindsay Davenport in ninth place on the list of most weeks at No 1 in the all-time list.
Her position at the top is secured for at least another couple of weeks after world No 2 Aryna Sabalenka opted to skip this week’s Qatar Open.
Although being No 1 hasn’t changed her personally, the 22-year-old admits there is added pressure at just about every event.
“I feel like because I’m at the top of the WTA I should have some standards,” she said. “Sometimes it’s a little bit harder to kind of take it easy, because you feel like everybody is chasing you.
Iga Swiatek is going for a third straight Qatar Open title this week but the world number one said she is not coming into the tournament with the mindset of a double defending champion as this year’s event is a “totally different story”.
“I learned from last year that there is no point on focusing on defending anything, so it’s a totally different chapter and totally different story,” said Swiatek ahead of her opening match against Romania’s Sorana Cirstea.
“I’m going to take it step by step and not really think about what happened last year or two years ago, because we are all at different points in our lives.