Ashleigh Barty joins WTA elite with third consecutive year-end number one crown
Ashleigh Barty has joined just a handful of women in achieving her third straight finishing top of the WTA rankings.
The Australian has now spent 95 weeks straight at the top of the WTA rankings.
That streak began on 9th September 2019, immediately after that year’s US Open.
The run does not include the 20 weeks in 2020 when the rankings were frozen due to the WTA tour’s pandemic hiatus.
As a result, Barty has now secured three seasons straight finishing first in the WTA rankings, 2019, 2020 and 2021.
The last woman to achieve the feat was Serena Williams from 2013 to 2015.
Including Barty, only five women have ever ended three successive season at world number one.
They are Barty, Williams, Steffi Graf, Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert.
The four women besides Barty all boast at least a Double Career Grand Slam.
Moreover, all have spent at least 260 weeks total at WTA world number one. That is five whole years.
Between them, they have 81 singles Slam titles for an average of just over 20 each.
Barty has a long way to go to match those legends, so far boasting one Roland Garros and one Wimbledon title from 2019 and 2021 respectively.
She claimed five titles in 2021, including her Wimbledon triumph and two WTA 1000 trophies in Miami and Cincinnati, to cement her place at world number one for the end of the season.
The Australian will be pushing for the singles crown at her home Slam this January.
Her career-best result in Melbourne came in 2020 when she reached the semi-finals before losing to eventual champion Sofia Kenin.
She has reached at least the quarter-finals at the Australian Open in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
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