Ekaterina Alexandrova breaks into Top 10 on WTA rankings following best season of career

Some players break into the Top 10 as teenagers, but some take a little more time—like Ekaterina Alexandrova, who makes her Top 10 debut today at 30 years young, moving up one spot from No. 11 to No. 10.

She’s been close for a few years now, reaching the Top 20 for the first time in 2022, then going as high as No. 16 in 2023 and No. 15 in 2024.

But 2025 has been the best season of her career, highlighted by capturing the biggest title of her career at the WTA 500 indoor hard-court event in Linz, which is held right after the Australian Open.

She reached two more finals this year, both at WTA 500s in Monterrey and Seoul, another four semifinals (including at a WTA 1000 in Doha) and two more quarterfinals. She also reached the fourth round at the last three Grand Slams—Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the US Open.

The result that put her over the line, though, was reaching the round of 16 in Wuhan last week, coincidentally her 16th round of 16 of the year.

And it’s about time, too, as Alexandrova has clearly shown she can hang with the Top 10—she has 19 career wins against the elite, the majority of them coming over the last few years, including five this year against Aryna Sabalenka and Jessica Pegula (in Doha), Zheng Qinwen (in Charleston) and Mirra Andreeva and Pegula again (in Stuttgart).

The big-hitting veteran continues her season in Ningbo this week.

On the ATP rankings, the most notable moves come from the breakout stars in Shanghai, cousins Valentin Vacherot and Arthur Rinderknech.

After reaching his first Masters 1000 final, Rinderknech jumps from No. 54 to No. 28, shattering his previous career-high of No. 42 from 2022.

But Vacherot’s ranking rise is much bigger—much, much bigger—as he soars from No. 204 to No. 40 after capturing the first Masters 1000 title of his career. And it came from out of nowhere, too, as he hadn’t even reached the quarterfinals of any ATP event in his career, let alone at a Masters 1000, let alone going all the way to a Masters 1000 title.

The 26-year-old Monegasque obliterates his previous career-high ranking of No. 110 to make his simultaneous Top 100 and Top 50 debuts.

After a few weeks of staggered tournament dates and rankings, both the ATP and WTA rankings will go back to regular weekly updates now.