WEEK: 11.27.2017

Aryna Sabalenka gets the mover of the week honors with her win in Mumbai. She won the L&T Mumbai Open as the number one seed by easily defeating Dalila Jakupovic 6-2, 6-3 to claim her first WTA title. The Belarusian has been slowly making her way up the rankings and came pretty close to claiming her first WTA title earlier in the year in Tianjin; however, she was stopped in the final by Maria Sharapova in two tough sets. Sabalenka will look to take this form into the 2018 season and I will be curious to see how far she goes next year now that she knows what winning feels like.

ATP and WTA Tours:  there were no changes in the top ten. The members remained the same and maintained their exact positions from the previous week.

The season officially ends for both tours after the ATP Finals and the WTA Finals; however, there are still some minor tournaments being contested in the lower levels of both Tours. The WTA introduced the 125K Series in 2012, which is similar to the ATP Challenger Series; thus, players can still boost their rankings by winning these events. However, just like a regular tour event, if you win it you have to defend your title the following year or you will lose the ranking points that you earned the previous year. Thus, it explains why Bellis’ ranking fell because she did not defend her title in Hawaii this year.

The advantage of these lower level tournaments is that determined players can get enough ranking points to get into the main draw or be eligible for the qualifying draw of the ATP World Tour and WTA Tour tournaments.

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