Bencic climbs to 7th in WTA rankings

PARIS: Belinda Bencic completed an excellent week, which saw her win the Kremlin Cup and qualify for the year-ending WTA finals, with a three-place climb to number seven in the WTA rankings released on Monday. The Swiss needed to reach the final to have any chance of qualifying for the Shenzhen year-ender but underlined her rise with a 3-6, 6-1, 6-1 win in Moscow over 2014 champion Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. It was her second title of the year following victory in Dubai in February. The Australian Ashleigh Barty retains the number one slot ahead of the Czech Karolina Pliskova. Bianca Andreescu, Simona Halep and Petra Kvitova all climb one place at the expense of Elina Svitolina who slips four spots to eighth while Kiki Bertens is down two to 10. The main climber outside the top 10 is Jelena Ostapenko, the 2017 French Open champion, who climbed 19 places to 44 following her title victory in Luxembourg on Sunday.

WTA rankings:

1. Ashleigh Barty (AUS) 6,476 pts

2. Karolina Pliskova (CZE) 5,315

3. Naomi Osaka (JPN) 5,246

4. Bianca Andreescu (CAN) 5,041 (+1)

5. Simona Halep (ROU) 4,962 (+1)

6. Petra Kvitova (CZE) 4,401 (+1)

7. Belinda Bencic (SUI) 4,120 (+3)

8. Elina Svitolina (UKR) 3,995 (-4)

9. Serena Williams (USA) 3,935

10. Kiki Bertens (NED) 3,870 (-2).