Ranking Reaction: Alycia Parks on the brink of Top 50 after winning first WTA title in Lyon
Meanwhile, Novak Djokovic kicks off his 375th career week at No. 1, and is on the verge of even more history.
One player continues her meteoric rise up the rankings this week, while another hits another milestone in his historic reign at the top.
Alycia Parks is the one on the rise, moving up 28 spots from No. 79 to No. 51—just one spot away from a Top 50 debut—after winning the first WTA title of her career at the WTA 250 event in Lyon, France.
Having made headlines earlier in the week with a spectacular hot shot in her second-round match, the 22-year-old American ended up going all the way to the title, defeating No. 5-ranked Caroline Garcia in the final, 7-6 (7), 7-5, for her first win over a Top 5 player.
She blasted 15 aces in the final and never dropped serve.
“Words can’t explain,” she told WTATennis.com. “Just last year, I was in an [ITF Challenger] $60,000 final, and now I have won a WTA 250.”
Only two and a half months ago Parks was ranked No. 150, but an impressive run in late November and early December—which saw her reach the semifinals of an $80,000 ITF Women’s Circuit event in Spain and then win back-to-back WTA 125K titles in Andorra and France—saw her cut that ranking exactly in half to No. 75 in three weeks.
Now, Parks is on the brink of the Top 50.
Meanwhile, a week after winning his 10th Australian Open and returning to No. 1—which made him the first man in ATP rankings history to touch No. 1 in 12 different years—Novak Djokovic reaches yet another milestone, spending his 375th career week at No. 1.
He already holds the record for most weeks at No. 1 in ATP rankings history by a long way, now 65 weeks ahead of any other man (Roger Federer has the next-most with 310). But he’s now just a couple of weeks away from breaking the record for most weeks at No. 1 in either ATP or WTA rankings history (Steffi Graf spent 377 weeks at No. 1).
Parks isn’t the only woman to make a notable move this week: China’s Zhu Lin makes her Top 50 debut after winning the other WTA 250 event last week in Hua Hin, Thailand, rising from No. 54 to No. 41; and Czech teenager Linda Noskova also makes her Top 50 debut, rising from No. 56 to No. 50 after reaching the quarterfinals in Lyon.
Wu Yibing becomes the second Chinese man to reach the Top 100 in ATP rankings history, too, going from No. 112 to No. 97 after reaching a Challenger final in Cleveland—his countryman, Zhang Zhizhen, cracked the Top 100 last October and is currently ranked No. 91.
Also, a number of players reach new career-highs on the ATP rankings despite not even earning any points this past week, after other players’ points dropped off and caused some reshuffling: Americans Frances Tiafoe, Ben Shelton and J.J. Wolf set new bests of No. 14, No. 41 and No. 43, respectively; Constant Lestienne makes his Top 50 debut, rising from No. 52 to No. 48; and Marc-Andrea Huesler also makes his Top 50 debut, rising from No. 53 to No. 49.