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Tennis: French Open champ Swiatek rises to 17th; Djokovic, Nadal 1-2

Tennis: French Open champ Swiatek rises to 17th; Djokovic, Nadal 1-2

Poland's Iga Swiatek, suddenly becoming a Grand Slam champion at the age of 19, poses with her French Open trophy on Oct 11, 2020. (Photo: AP/Christophe Ena)

PARIS: French Open champion Iga Swiatek joined the top 20 for the first time on Monday (Oct 12) by rising 37 spots to a career-best of world number 17 in the WTA rankings.

Rafael Nadal’s 6-0, 6-2, 7-5 victory over Novak Djokovic on Sunday for a 13th championship at Roland Garros and 20th Grand Slam trophy in all - tying Roger Federer’s record for men - did not change the top of the ATP rankings.

READ: Phenomenal Nadal played perfect match, says Djokovic

Djokovic, who won the Australian Open in February for his 17th major title, is still world number one, with Nadal at number two, followed by US Open champion Dominic Thiem and Federer.

The 19-year-old Swiatek entered the French Open at number 54 and became the lowest-ranked female champion at the clay-court Grand Slam tournament since the WTA computer rankings began in 1975.

Her 6-4, 6-1 victory over Sofia Kenin on Saturday gave Swiatek the first tour-level title of any sort in her professional career and made her Poland’s first Grand Slam singles champion.

Kenin’s run to the final - the first time she made it to the quarter-finals on clay anywhere - allowed her to move up two places to number four, matching her career high. 

The 21-year-old American went 16-2 in Grand Slam matches in 2020, winning her first major title at the Australian Open in February.

READ: Fearless Swiatek continues transfer of power in women's tennis

The top three in the women’s rankings remained as they were before the French Open, with Ashleigh Barty at number one, Simona Halep at number two and Naomi Osaka at number three. 

Serena Williams is currently ranked 10th.

When competition resumed in August after a hiatus of about five months because of the coronavirus pandemic, the tours decided to allow players to use either their 2019 or 2020 results at any given tournament for rankings purposes, so Barty wasn’t hurt by sitting out the French Open a year after winning it.

Osaka also sat out the trip to Paris this time, opting to rest and recover after her win at the US Open last month.

Halep did compete at the French Open, but her 6-1, 6-2 loss to Swiatek in the fourth round didn’t affect the three-time major champion’s ranking.

In the ATP, Argentina's Diego Schwartzman, who reached his first Grand Slam semi-final before losing to Nadal, cracked the top 10 for the first time, jumping to number eight from number 14.

Russia's Andrey Rublev also made his top 10 debut on Monday, using a second consecutive major quarter-final appearance to go to number 10 from number 12.

The biggest mover in the men’s top 100 was Jannik Sinner, whose quarter-final showing - he was beaten by Nadal - pushed the 19-year-old Italian up 29 places to number 46.

Source: AP/kg

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