MOSCOW, February 19. /TASS/. Russian tennis player Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova climbed eight spots in the newest installment of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) rankings released on Monday.
Playing last week at the 2024 Qatar Open Tennis tournament, which is classified as a WTA-1000 competition on the organization’s calendar, Pavlyuchenkova reached the semifinals, where she lost to Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina in straight sets 2-6; 6-4.
Pavlyuchenkova, 32, is currently rated 24th in the WTA Rankings list, eight places higher than last week, when she was 32nd. The tennis player boasts 12 career WTA titles. Her best result to date in Grand Slams was in 2021 when she reached the final of the French Open.
The Russian, who is playing internationally under a neutral status, also won a gold medal at the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo in mixed doubles (with teammate Andrey Rublev), as well as the 2021 Billie Jean King Cup as part of the Russian national team.
The Top-10 of the WTA Rankings is as follows: 1st Iga Swiatek (Poland); 2nd Arina Sobolenko (Belarusian tennis player competing in international tennis tournaments under a neutral status); 3rd Coco Gauff (the United States); 4th Elena Rybakina (Kazakhstan); 5th Jessica Pegula (the United States); 6th Ons Jabeur (Tunisia); 7th Qinwen Zheng (China); 8th Marketa Vondrousova (the Czech Republic); 9th Jelena Ostapenko (Latvia) and 10th Karolina Muchova (the Czech Republic).
Russian players’ neutral status at tennis tournaments
On February 28, 2022, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued recommendations to international sports federations to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in international tournaments, citing Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine as the reason.
Following the IOC’s recommendations in late February 2022, the majority of global sports federations decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from all international sports tournaments.
The International Tennis Federation (ITF) ruled on March 1, 2022 to suspend the membership of the Russian and Belarusian national tennis federations while also cancelling all previously scheduled tennis tournaments in the two countries.
On March 14, 2022, the ITF also confirmed its prohibition of the Russian and Belarusian national tennis teams from the 2022 Davis Cup and 2022 Billie Jean King Cup.
However, the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) allowed tennis players from Russia and Belarus to continue participating in WTA and ATP tournaments, but only under a neutral status.