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| Venus and Serena Williams |
For the first time in seven years, when the new rankings are released, both Williams sisters will sit at the very top of the WTA rankings. Serena and Venus will be the world’s No. 1 and 2 players, respectively.
Serena ended 2009 as the world’s No. 1 player and has maintained, but Venus has had to claw her way to the top from the sixth position in the rankings, bouncing around from third to seventh throughout last year. She had a run earlier in the year when she took two titles (Dubai and Acapulco) in a row, then, directly after, made the finals of the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami. The streak allowed the elder Williams to rack up points that will now catapult her to the No. 2 position in the world.
The sisters have long been a formidable force in women’s tennis, courtesy of their dedicated parent trainers, but what makes this latest feat stand out is their ages. At 28 (Serena) and 29 (Venus), in tennis years, the longtime champions are considered to be on the back end of their careers. The sport’s top 20 is filled with teenagers and early twentysomethings with strong lower backs and young legs that typically dominate the field. The Williamses simply aren’t ready to go away.
The way the rankings are handled, based on a cumulative point system, as long as you perform as well as or better than your performance in the same tournament of the previous year, you keep or earn additional ranking points. With that, Venus has gone farther in tournaments this year than the last and Serena has, where it counted, maintained her dominance.
The point spread between the second and third positions will be quite tight, forcing Venus to continue to work hard going forward, but for now, the Williams queens will once again be holding court at the very top. –gerald radford
