Jessica Pegula arrives in Charleston as the tournament’s top seed and reigning champion, and this week she also reaches a significant personal milestone: her 200th straight week inside the WTA Top 10. Pegula, ranked No. 5, won the Charleston title last season, her first tour-level clay-court trophy at the WTA 500 level.

Her Top 10 run has been uninterrupted since June 6, 2022. On that date she moved from No. 11 to No. 8 after reaching the quarterfinals of Roland Garros and has remained among the elite ever since. The current streak is the third-longest among players presently in the WTA Top 10, trailing only Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek.

Viewed by ranking bands, Pegula’s Top 10 tenure shows notable consistency. Across 200 weeks she has occupied positions between No. 3 and No. 9 for the entire span. Ninety-five percent of those weeks, 190, have been spent in the No. 3-7 range. Eighty-seven percent, 173 weeks, were within No. 3-6. She has been inside the Top 5 for 71 percent of the period, a total of 142 weeks.

Pegula reached her career-high ranking of No. 3 for the first time on October 24, 2022. She has now spent 52 weeks at No. 3, a little over a quarter of her Top 10 stay.

The milestone arrives as she attempts to defend the title she earned on Charleston clay, a victory that marked a new surface achievement in her career. The 200-week mark underlines both her durability and her steady position among the tour’s best since breaking into the Top 10 in mid-2022.

© 2026 Robert Prange

The Credit One Charleston Open’s 25th Daniel Island edition enters the clay season with an unprecedented purse for this level on the WTA tour. Tournament organizers announced a total prize fund of $2.5 million, matching the amount awarded at ATP 500 events. The singles champion will collect $354,345, up from $164,000 in 2025.

“It’s a commitment not just to today’s players, but to the future of the sport,” according to the tournament website. The increase signals a clear investment in the event and in the athletes who will compete on Charleston’s green clay.

Top seed and defending champion Jessica Pegula arrives after a strong start to 2026. Pegula reached her first Australian Open semifinal and added a fourth WTA 1000 trophy in Dubai. Now back inside the Top 5, she also pushed through solid results in the Sunshine Swing, losing two close quarterfinal matches to AO champion Elena Rybakina at the BNP Paribas Open and Miami Open. Jessica Pegula can’t run into Elena Rybakina in Charleston, but the defending champion will still face plenty of top competition.

World No. 6 Amanda Anisimova is second among the top seeds and announced a coaching change on Friday. Anisimova aims to build on a breakthrough 2025 season in which she reached back-to-back Grand Slam finals at Wimbledon and the US Open. The 24-year-old completed a box set of Grand Slam quarterfinal appearances with a run at the 2026 Australian Open and reached the semifinals in Dubai, where she pushed Pegula to three sets.

A youthful contingent also figures to make noise. Eighteen-year-old Iva Jovic will make her Charleston debut after a breakthrough Australian Open, where as the No. 29 seed she stunned world No. 8 Jasmine Paolini en route to the quarterfinals. That run helped Jovic make her Top 20 debut on the WTA rankings.

With a historic purse and a competitive draw, the Charleston Open stands as a notable stop as players transition to clay for the season ahead.

Aryna Sabalenka begins her 80th career week as the WTA No. 1, a milestone that places the four-time major champion among an elite group in the sport’s ranking history. She is the 11th player to reach 80 weeks at the top since the WTA rankings began in 1975, and only the sixth woman to do so this century alongside Martina Hingis, Serena Williams, Justine Henin, Ashleigh Barty and Iga Swiatek.

Sabalenka’s advantage at the summit has in fact inched higher over the last month despite not competing since the Australian Open. A month ago she led Iga Swiatek by 3,012 points (10,990 to 7,978); the current gap reads 3,087 points (10,675 to 7,588). She will keep the No. 1 position through Indian Wells, where she is defending 650 points from a runner-up finish last year. The top ranking could be contested in Miami, where she defends 1,000 points as the reigning champion.

Last week’s WTA events produced significant upward movement in the rankings. Cristina Bucsa, who captured her first WTA title in Merida, climbed from No. 63 to No. 31 and eclipsed her prior career high of No. 50. Runner-up Magdalena Frech moved from No. 57 to No. 36. Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva entered the Top 100 for the first time, advancing from No. 122 to No. 97 after reaching the quarterfinals in Merida as a qualifier.

In Austin, Peyton Stearns claimed her second WTA title and rose from No. 62 to No. 48. Taylor Townsend, the finalist at the WTA 250 event and making her first WTA semifinal and final of her career, returned to the Top 100 for the first time since last summer, moving from No. 119 to No. 87.

On the ATP side, Flavio Cobolli recorded a notable rise to No. 15 after winning the ATP 500 in Acapulco, surpassing his previous best of No. 17. Jakub Mensik continued his steady climb: he reached No. 13 after a Doha semifinal and moved to No. 12 following a Dubai quarterfinal.