Elina Svitolina has surged to a career milestone as a mother, rising to No. 7 on the WTA singles rankings.

Her run this season has been compact and impactful. In a few months she captured a title in Auckland, reached the Australian Open semifinal, advanced to the WTA 1000 final in Dubai and made the WTA 1000 semifinal at Indian Wells. By winning her opening match in Miami she became the first player, woman or man, to win 20 matches this year. After her results in Melbourne she returned to the Top 10 for the first time since coming back to the tour as a mom three years ago, moving from No. 12 to No. 10, and this week she rose to No. 7, her highest ranking as a mom.

That rise places Svitolina level with Serena Williams for the highest ranking attained by a mother on the WTA list in recent years. Williams returned to the tour in 2018 after giving birth to her first child, Olympia, in 2017 and worked her way back to No. 7 in 2021. During her return she won one title, in Auckland in 2020, and reached four Grand Slam finals at Wimbledon and the US Open across 2018 and 2019, plus two major semifinals at the 2020 US Open and the 2021 Australian Open. She then evolved away from the game in 2022.

Svitolina and Williams are the highest-ranked mothers on the WTA singles list since Kim Clijsters. Clijsters returned in 2009 after giving birth in 2008 and captured three Grand Slam titles in that comeback: the 2009 US Open, 2010 US Open and the 2011 Australian Open. A few weeks after winning in Melbourne she rose to No. 1 the week of February 14, 2011, the first mother to reach the top spot in WTA history.

Belinda Bencic is the only other mother this century to reach the Top 10. A former No. 4, she had her first child in 2024, played her first full season back in 2025 and earlier this year returned to the Top 10.

Valentin Vacherot’s return to the Monte Carlo Country Club this spring carries a different weight than the one he experienced a year ago.

In April 2025 the 27-year-old recorded his first ATP Tour match win as a wild card, defeating Jan-Lennard Struff in the first round of the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters while ranked No. 256. That victory was only his fifth tour-level match.

A year on, Vacherot arrives at the 2026 edition with a markedly altered resume. He earned 2025 ATP Breakthrough of the Year after becoming the lowest-ranked player to win an ATP Masters 1000 event in Shanghai, where he knocked off Novak Djokovic and then beat his cousin Arthur Rinderknech in the final as a 204th-ranked qualifier. He will open in Monaco against Kamil Majchrzak, a match that frames one of the sport’s more compelling homecomings.

“Already I cannot wait. I think about it a lot. Really excited about this,” he tells TENNIS.com with a big grin at the BNP Paribas Open. “Last year with two matches was pretty crazy. With my new status, it’s going to be more interesting.”

Vacherot, a former Texas A&M University standout, is experiencing his first Sunshine Swing this month. He recalls his only previous trip to Indian Wells coming while a student athlete: “I was here for the fall national championship in 2017. When I stepped on Court 7, I remembered my friend playing on that court,” he reminisces.

His profile rose further after Shanghai; he and Rinderknech reached a doubles final that included wins over tandems featuring singles stars Daniil Medvedev-Learner Tien, Djokovic-Stefanos Tsitsipas and Karen Khachanov-Andrey Rublev. He took the court seven times that week, including two singles matches, and has noticed the change. “More and more people recognize me at tournaments,” he notices. “Acapulco was pretty intense, they love tennis over there. Lot of pictures and autographs.”

Since his breakthrough, Vacherot has shown consistency with quarterfinals at Adelaide and Acapulco, a third-round showing at the Australian Open, two Davis Cup qualifier wins including a narrow victory over 10th-ranked Alexander Bublik that helped secure a World Group 1 tie with Finland, and a fourth-round debut at the Miami Open after straight-set wins over Mariano Navone and Matteo Berrettini.

He remains focused on sustaining the level that propelled him into the ATP’s upper ranks. “This is all new to me, a new experience. I had the level let’s say for three weeks, where it needed to be to maybe be in the Top 20. Now the goal is to have it for 52 weeks. That’s what I’m training for,” he states. “I try to practice as much as possible with the best guys who’ve been here a long time with the ranking.”

Elena Rybakina reached a milestone this week: her 100th career week inside the WTA Top 5. It is also her third week at a career-high of No. 2.

Rybakina captured the second Grand Slam title of her career at the Australian Open earlier this year and lifted her ranking to No. 2 after a strong start to 2026. Her first entry into the Top 5 came on May 22nd, 2023, when she rose from No. 6 to No. 4 after winning the WTA 1000 event in Rome. That opening spell lasted 77 consecutive weeks before she dipped out on November 10th, 2024.

She returned to the Top 5 for two weeks from January 27th to February 9th, 2025, immediately following the Australian Open. A difficult portion of 2025 saw her struggle for consistency and even fall out of the Top 10. The season shifted after Wimbledon, however. Rybakina reached three straight semifinals in Washington D.C., Canada and Cincinnati, then closed 2025 on an 11-match winning streak that included winning the WTA Finals.

That unbeaten run in Riyadh carried her back into the Top 5, moving her from No. 6 to No. 5. This week marks her 21st consecutive week in the elite since that return, bringing her career total to 100 weeks.

Rybakina has maintained much of that late-2025 form into early 2026. Her best results so far this season are the title in Melbourne and a run to the final at Indian Wells. At Indian Wells she held match point against Aryna Sabalenka before finishing runner-up to the world No. 1 in a third set tie-break, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (6). After Indian Wells, Rybakina rose to No. 2.

She remains 2,917 points behind Sabalenka in the rankings, 11,025 to 8,108. The upcoming clay-court season presents an opportunity for Rybakina to press for the top ranking.