The 2026 grass-court season is done and dusted and now the focus switches back to hard courts with Canada and the United States hosting the North American swing.<\/p>\n
Last year\u2019s hard-court campaign was productive for the likes of Aryna Sabalenka, Elena Rybakina, Iga Swiatek and Amanda Anisimova, which means they have a lot of points to defend in the next few months.<\/p>\n
The North American swing gets underway on 27 July with the Mubadala Citi DC Open in Washington DC and the Memphis Classic before attention turns to the WTA 1000 scene with Toronto hosting the Canadian Open from 3 August and Mason staging the Cincinnati Open from the 13th.<\/p>\n
There is one tournament before the US Open with the WTA 500 Monterrey Open in Mexico taking place from 24 August, before the swing ends with the final Grand Slam of the year in New York (30 August-13 September).<\/p>\n
With the WTA Rankings<\/a> determined via a rolling 52-week, cumulative system, players have to defend the points they earned from the same tournament\/period 12 months ago.<\/p>\n 2026 WTA Prize Money List: Linda Noskova jumps to No 1, Iga Swiatek slips further down<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n What is Alex Eala\u2019s next tournament and upcoming schedule after Wimbledon breakthrough?<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Example: If Player A won the Canadian Open last year, they earned 1,000 points and those points will be removed at the start of the 2026 edition in the Live Rankings, but the player will then earn points for every round at this year\u2019s tournament. The only way they can keep those 1,000 points is by winning the tournament again.<\/p>\n The world No 1 \u2013 who is under pressure to keep top spot in the WTA Rankings as she is only 407 points ahead of Rybakina \u2013 played only two events during the swing last year and that was the Cincinnati Open and the US Open.<\/p>\n Sabalenka lost in the quarter-final in Cincinnati (215) and won the US Open<\/a> (2000).<\/p>\n The reigning Australian Open champion had a busy North American campaign last year as she played in four events, reaching the semi-final in Washington DC (195), the semis in Canada (390), the semis in Cincinnati (390) and the round of 16 at Flushing Meadows (240).<\/p>\n She won\u2019t defend her points in Washington DC, but is still favourite to overtake Sabalenka at No 1 after the hard-court campaign.<\/p>\n The American climbed to No 3 after Wimbledon and she lost in the second round in Washington DC (1 point), the round of 32 in Canada (65), the round of 32 in Cincy (65) and was a semi-finalist at the US Open (780).<\/p>\n The 2023 US Open champion had a poor campaign last year as she was beaten in the round of 16 in Montreal (120), quarter-final in Cincinnati (215) and the round of 16 at the US Open (240).<\/p>\n But with many of the players around her dropping more points, it opens an opportunity for Gauff<\/a> to edge closer to the top three.<\/p>\n The reigning French Open champion also has an opportunity to move up the rankings as she will drop 35 points from the 2025 Canadian Open and 130 from the US Open.<\/p>\n Fresh from finishing runner-up at Wimbledon, Muchova will defend 120 points from a round of 16 appearance in Canada, 65 from a round of 32 run in Cincy and 430 from a quarter-final at the US Open.<\/p>\n The 2026 Wimbledon winner \u2013 who will also drop 163 points next week from Prague 2025 \u2013 lost in the round of 64 in both Montreal (10) and Cincinnati (10) last year, but only 10 points will drop as Montreal is non-countable.<\/p>\n Noskova also played in Monterrey in 2025 and reached the quarter-final (108) and the round of 32 at the US Open (130).<\/p>\n Having slipped to No 8 in the rankings after her failure to defend her Wimbledon crown, Swiatek is in danger<\/a> of slipping out of the top 10.<\/p>\n The Pole reached the round of 16 in Montreal 12 months ago and earned 120 points and then went on to lift the Cincinnati Open trophy (1,000) before losing in the quarter-final of the US Open (430).<\/p>\n Anisimova picked up 130 points at the Canadian Open and 35 in Cincy before going on an incredible run at Flushing Meadows as she finished runner-up to Sabalenka and that was worth 1,300 points.<\/p>\n The Canadian has already dropped out of the top 10 after she was forced to miss Wimbledon due to injury and she is set to drop a few more spots as she won\u2019t defend her points at Washington DC (60) and Canada (1,000).<\/p>\n Last year, Mboko became the second wildcard to win the Canadian Open, but she has already confirmed she won\u2019t play this year due to her knee injury.<\/p>\n It remains to be seen if she will play at Cincinnati (she didn\u2019t feature last year) or the US Open (10 points after losing in the first round).<\/p>\n Fresh from a historic run to the round of 16 at Wimbledon, Eala finds herself in a good position as she has 10 points to defend in Canada, 0 in Cincinnati and 70 at the US Open.<\/p>\n Following her second-round exit from the US Open last year, the Filipina entered the WTA Challenger event in Guadalajara and won the event, earning 125 points.<\/p>\n The British No 1 was a semi-finalist in Washington DC last year (195), reached the round of 32 in Montreal (65) and Cincinnati (65) before losing in the round of 32 at the US Open (130).<\/p>\n Raducanu is currently struggling with a leg injury and won\u2019t play in Washington DC while it remains to be seen if she will be fit for the remainder of the swing.<\/p>\n The post WTA Rankings: Points Sabalenka, Swiatek, Gauff, Raducanu, Eala will drop during North American swing<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 2026 grass-court season is done and dusted and now the focus switches back to hard courts with Canada and the United States hosting the North American swing. Last year\u2019s hard-court campaign was productive for the likes of Aryna Sabalenka, Elena Rybakina, Iga Swiatek and Amanda Anisimova, which means they have a lot of points […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}WTA News<\/h2>\n
Points The Big Names Will Drop<\/h2>\n
Aryna Sabalenka \u2013 2,215<\/h2>\n
Elena Rybakina \u2013 1,215<\/h2>\n
Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Jessica Pegula \u2013 911<\/h2>\n
Coco Gauff \u2013 575<\/h2>\n
Mirra Andreeva \u2013 165<\/h2>\n
Karolina Muchova \u2013 650<\/h2>\n
Linda Noskova \u2013 411<\/h2>\n
Iga Swiatek \u2013 1,550<\/h2>\n
Amanda Anisimova \u2013 1,455<\/h2>\n
Victoria Mboko \u2013 1,060<\/h2>\n
Alex Eala \u2013 205<\/h2>\n
Emma Raducanu \u2013 455<\/h2>\n