Filed under: WTA, WTA Rankings
When I was growing up near Chicago, our school used to give free White Sox tickets for perfect attendance or for straight A's. Perfect attendance was always seen as back-dooring your way into Sox Park.Sure, being at school was worth a pat on the back. But everyone knew it was nowhere near as important as doing something when you got there.
Well, Caroline Wozniacki is going to move past Serena Williams and into the No. 1 spot in the world rankings on Monday. She earned the final computer points needed on Thursday, beating Petra Kvitova 6-3, 6-2 to reach the quarterfinals of the China Open. Williams isn't in China.
Wozniacki gets the award for attendance over achievement. Williams is like the kid who ditches class all semester, makes up excuses, forges parent notes and then aces the final exams.
Everyone knows that Williams is the world's best player. Wozniacki is a paper champion, having never won a major and never even beaten one of the game's elite stars. That's nine tries, zero wins against Serena and Venus Williams, Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin.
She can't possibly be No. 1? The problem isn't with Wozniacki, who played by the rules. It's with the rules themselves. Players win computer rankings points based on their tournament results, with more points for more-important tournaments. They hold onto those points for 12 months.
Wozniacki has won five tournaments this year, and most of them weren't even among the bigger non-majors and didn't include the best players. Serena has won two majors, the Australian Open and Wimbledon, but has played just six tournaments all year, skipping most of the season for injuries real or invented.
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