Tennis: Simona Halep advances to 3rd spot in WTA ranking

Romanian tennis player Simona Halep has climbed one spot advancing to the third position in the world ranking of professional tennis players (Women's Tennis Association - WTA), released on Monday. Halep, who is not playing in the first week of the year, follows Australian Ashleigh Barty and Czech Karolina Pliskova (Czech Republic) in the ranking, with second-ranked Karolina Pliskova only having less than 100 points more than Halep. Romanian-born Canadian player Bianca Andreescu ranks 6th. The other Romanian players in top 100 are Sorana Cirstea, stagnating at 74, and Ana Bogdan, who climbed one step to 97. In the doubles ranking, there are four Romanians in the top 100, ranked 45th (+2) - Monica Niculescu, 46th (+2) - Raluca Olaru, 73rd (stagnating) - Irina Begu and 86th (stagnating) - Irina Bara. The singles WTA ranking: 1 (1). Ashleigh Barty (Australia) 7,851 points 2 (2). Karolina Pliskova (Czech Republic) 5,525 3 (4). Simona Halep 5,462 4 (3). Naomi Osaka (Japan) 5,311 5 (6). Elina Svitolina (Ukraine) 5,075 6 (5). Bianca Andreescu (Canada) 4,935 7 (7). Petra Kvitova (Czech Republic) 4,721 8 (8). Belinda Bencic (Switzerland) 4,685 9 (9). Kiki Bertens (The Netherlands) 4,245 10 (10). Serena Williams (USA) 3,935 .......................................................... 74 (74). Sorana Cirstea 778 97 (98). Ana Bogdan 684 101 (102). Irina-Camelia Begu 669 112 (113). Mihaela Buzarnescu 596 113 (114). Patricia Maria Tig 593 127 (118). Monica Niculescu 488 161 (164). Irina Bara 367 182 (185). Elena-Gabriela Ruse 325 208 (211). Jaqueline Cristian 285 217 (220). Laura Ioana Paar 277 268 (269). Alexandra Cadantu 220 281 (282). Nicoleta Dascalu 203 ... WTA doubles ranking 1 (1). Barbora Strycova (Czech Republic) 7,110 points 2 (3). Timea Babos (Hungary) 6,915 3 (2). Kristina Mladenovic (France) 6,900 4 (4). Su-Wei Hsieh (Taiwan) 6,705 5 (5). Arina Sabalenka (Belarus) 6,655 6 (6). Elise Mertens (Belgium) 6,615 7 (7). Katerina Siniakova (Czech Republic) 4,955 8 (8). Yifan Xu (China) 4,950 8 (8). Gabriela Dabrowski (Canada) 4,950 10 (10). Shuai Zhang (China) 4,705 ...................................................... 45 (47). Monica Niculescu 1,587 46 (48). Raluca Olaru 1,565 73 (73). Irina-Camelia Begu 1,205 86 (86). Irina Bara 1,046 ... AGERPRES (RO-author: Mihai Tenea, editor: Vlad Constantinescu; EN - author: Cristina Zaharia, editor: Adina Panaitescu)