Elena Rybakina has set her sights on becoming the 17th woman to finish the season as the year-end No 1 in the WTA Rankings, vowing to “push” during the final few months of the year.

The three-time Grand Slam winner made her debut at No 1 in the rankings in September as she overtook Aryna Sabalenka – who had spent 99 consecutive weeks at the top – on the back of her title run at the US Open.

Rybakina will play her first tournament as No 1 at this week’s China Open and she starts with a handy 2,091-point lead over second-placed Sabalenka – and that tally can increase if she outperforms the four-time major champion in Beijing.

There is the not-so-small matter of the WTA Finals where the Kazakh star will drop 1,500 points and Sabalenka 1,000 that could see the likes of Jessica Pegula, Coco Gauff and Mirra Andreeva join the fight for top spot. Of course, they would need to do well in the events preceding the Finals to be in the hunt.

If she does hold off her challengers, then she will follow in Sabalenka’s footsteps after the Belarusian achieved the feat last year and in 2024.

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And while finishing the year at No 1 is her big goal for 2026, her ultimate goal is to become a Career Grand Slam winner.

“I think at the US Open I said it will be nice to win the French Open, then it’s going to be four Slams. I mean, now I’m No 1, which is great. Still, it’s not the end of the season. I would like to push and finish at No 1,” she said when asked about her targets.

“I mean, who knows what’s going to happen. It’s a lot of good players, a lot of tough opponents. Anything can change.

“That’s the goal for now.”

Rybakina, of course, won her maiden Grand Slam at Wimbledon in 2022 and started the 2026 campaign with the Australian Open before adding the US Open to her collection, while her best performances at Roland Garros have been a couple of quarter-final appearances.

Now that the dust has settled around her US Open title and No 1 achievement, the 27-year-old admits was asked “what do you think the mindset of the No 1 player in the world should look like and she replied: “I have no idea. I just became No 1.

“I feel like the most important is to enjoy [it]. It’s not easy always. For that I have people around me. Sometimes I can be down or up. It’s important to enjoy [it].”

She finished off: “I don’t know how the No 1 should be. I don’t know.”