{"id":107314,"date":"2026-06-25T07:30:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T11:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=107314"},"modified":"2026-06-25T00:09:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T04:09:12","slug":"pre-wimbledon-wta-power-rankings-rybakina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2026\/06\/25\/pre-wimbledon-wta-power-rankings-rybakina\/","title":{"rendered":"Pre-Wimbledon WTA Power Rankings: Rybakina to Strike?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is not a reprint of the WTA seedings, which are determined purely by ranking and tell you who is protected in the draw. Rather, this is a power ranking–telling you who is most likely to win. These rankings weight grass-court history, current season form, surface-specific game profiles, physical condition, and ceiling at SW19. The women’s draw in 2026 is, by most metrics, the most open it has been in a decade. Six different Grand Slam champions in the last six majors. No back-to-back champion since Serena Williams in 2016. A field where the number one seed has never won Wimbledon and the defending champion is not considered the favourite. With that context, here is the honest order.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pre-Wimbledon WTA Power Rankings<\/h2>\n

1. Aryna Sabalenka<\/span><\/h3>\n

WTA Ranking: 1
\nPrevious Power Rankings: 1<\/p>\n

Aryna Sabalenka is the World #1, a four-time Grand Slam champion, and the player whose game profile suits grass better than most people have historically given her credit for. The serve is elite. The flat groundstrokes skid through without giving opponents time. She reached the semifinal at Wimbledon<\/a> last year, which represents her best result at SW19<\/a> and came after she was considered a nearly-certain finalist. Wimbledon is the only Major she has never won, and the hunger to close that gap is a relevant psychological factor on top of the objective quality of her game. She goes first. The question mark is the Roland Garros quarterfinal collapse where she dropped the final set 6-0, but there is no evidence that pattern will follow on grass.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Elena Rybakina<\/span><\/h3>\n

WTA Ranking: 2
\nPrevious Power Rankings: NR<\/p>\n

Elena Rybakina is the most dangerous grass-court player in the women’s game and goes second here because the 2026 season has been mostly excellent, her serve is the biggest individual weapon in the draw, and her 2022 Wimbledon title was earned against serious opponents on grass-specific merit. The caveat is the four-year gap between that title and now, in which she has produced a quarterfinal, a semifinal, and a third-round exit at successive Wimbledons. She arrives as World #2, in the best form of her career across a full season. If she gets through the first week without a shock exit, she is the most likely finalist on either side of the draw. Whether she can win it remains the question she has spent four years not yet answering definitively.<\/span><\/p>\n

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3. Mirra Andreeva<\/span><\/h3>\n

WTA Ranking: 5
\nPrevious Power Rankings: 2<\/p>\n

Mirra Andreeva is the Roland Garros champion, nineteen years old, and a player whose tactical intelligence and baseline stability already work at a level that baffles players a decade older. The honest caveat here is substantial. Her best Wimbledon result to date is a quarterfinal in 2025, and she goes third on this list primarily because of the trajectory of her season. Her game on grass is yet to be fully tested at the highest level. She skipped Berlin to recover and prepare, which is sensible management of a demanding fortnight. She is the most exciting unknown quantity in the draw. The ceiling at Wimbledon could be a final. The floor is still a second-round exit on a surface where her game is less proven than on clay.<\/span><\/p>\n

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4. Iga Swiatek\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

WTA Ranking: 3
\nPrevious Power Rankings: 6<\/p>\n

Swiatek won Wimbledon in 2025 as an eighth seed, which was the first grass-court title of her career and was widely received as a watershed moment in her development as an all-surface player. It was also, in some sense, the most Swiatek result available: winning a tournament almost nobody expected her to win on the surface she was least suited to, through sheer competitive intensity and tactical adaptation. Whether she has genuinely become a grass-court threat or whether 2025 was a peak performance on a surface that does not consistently reward her game is the central question around her Wimbledon chances in 2026. The defending champion goes fourth. She cannot be dismissed. She also cannot be assumed to be the favorite on the basis of one title, and her record at Wimbledon outside of 2025 does not suggest grass has become her second home<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

5. Jessica Pegula<\/span><\/h3>\n

WTA Ranking: 4
\nPrevious Power Rankings: 7<\/p>\n

Jessica Pegula has had the most quietly consistent season in the draw. She has reached the quarterfinals at the Australian Open<\/a> this year, reached the Berlin final, and has played at a steadily high level without the peaks and troughs that surround most of the players ranked above her. Her Wimbledon record is not spectacular, having never made the final, but her serve and flat ball-striking translate reasonably well to the surface. She is not the most exciting player to rank here and she is probably not winning the tournament. She is, however, the most reliable player in the draw after the top four, and reliability matters across a fortnight.<\/span><\/p>\n

6. Elina Svitolina<\/span><\/h3>\n

WTA Ranking: 8
\nPrevious Power Rankings: 4<\/p>\n

Elina Svitolina goes sixth on this list on the basis of grass-court pedigree and the specific quality of her movement and defensive game, both of which become more valuable on a surface that rewards clean winners and punishes passive baseline tennis. She reached the Wimbledon quarterfinals in 2023 as a mother returning from maternity leave, which remains one of the more extraordinary individual achievements in recent Grand Slam history. Her 2026 season has been very good albeit not exceptional. The ceiling at Wimbledon for Svitolina at this stage of her career is probably a quarterfinal. Getting there would require her best tennis. She is capable of producing it.<\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

7. Amanda Anisimova<\/span><\/h3>\n

WTA Ranking: 6
\nPrevious Power Rankings: NR<\/p>\n

Amanda Anisimova was the 2025 Wimbledon finalist, losing to Swiatek in the final after beating Sabalenka in a two-hour, thirty-seven minute semifinal. That result was not a fluke. Her flat, aggressive groundstrokes and improved serve travel beautifully on grass, and the 2025 fortnight confirmed that she is a genuine SW19 contender rather than a player who happened to have a good run. The significant concern heading into 2026 is the wrist injury that has kept her away from the tour for a few months. She has played very few competitive matches since March. Coming back to win seven matches at a Grand Slam in that condition is a stretch regardless of what she produced twelve months ago. She goes seventh because the 2025 result demands respect, and ninth or tenth on current fitness alone.<\/span><\/p>\n

8. Coco Gauff<\/span><\/h3>\n

WTA Ranking: 7
\nPrevious Power Rankings: 3<\/p>\n

Coco Gauff is seeded seventh and goes eighth here, because her Wimbledon record requires honesty before it requires enthusiasm. She has gone out in the first round in two of the last three editions of the tournament and has never reached the quarterfinal at SW19. The serve has improved considerably across her career but her form has been up and down for a while. The grass specifically, and Wimbledon specifically, have consistently exposed something in her game that does not translate from other surfaces in the way her ranking implies it should. She can reach the second week. Going deep requires her to solve a problem she has been unable to solve for several years.<\/span><\/p>\n

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9. Linda Noskova<\/span><\/h3>\n

WTA Ranking: 10
\nPrevious Power Rankings: NR<\/p>\n

Linda Noskova won the Berlin Open on Sunday, beating Jessica Pegula 6-4 4-6 6-3 in the final to claim the biggest title of her career and her first on grass. She enters Wimbledon as one of the hottest grass-court players in the women’s draw having beaten three top-ten players across the week. She is 21 years old, has now won two WTA titles in 2026, and goes into SW19 having played and won more competitive grass matches than almost anyone in the field.<\/span><\/p>\n

The caveat is that Wimbledon is a different environment to Berlin in terms of opponent quality and the pressure that accumulates over a fortnight. The ceiling this week could comfortably exceed a fourth round if the draw is kind and the serve keeps firing at the level it reached in Berlin.<\/span><\/p>\n

10. Marta Kostyuk<\/span><\/h3>\n

WTA Ranking: 13
\nPrevious Power Rankings: 5<\/p>\n

Marta Kostyuk won the Madrid Open on clay this year and arrives at Wimbledon as a seeded player with results in 2026 that suggest genuine improvement as an all-court player. She has not historically been a grass-court specialist, and her Wimbledon record shows a first-round exit in 2025, which limits how high she can reasonably be placed heading into this edition. The Madrid title is real and demands acknowledgement. So is the absence of any meaningful grass-court results that would justify upgrading her from an outside contender to a genuine threat. She goes tenth. A second-week appearance would be a strong Wimbledon. A deep run would be a significant surprise.<\/span><\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit: Susan Mullane-Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is not a reprint of the WTA seedings, which are determined purely by ranking and tell you who is protected in the draw. Rather, this is a power ranking–telling you who is most likely to win. These rankings weight grass-court history, current season form, surface-specific game profiles, physical condition, and ceiling at SW19. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5393,"featured_media":86390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9,6,4],"tags":[43844,2746,43873,2747,5595,394,4315,3535,17703,2372,18273],"class_list":["post-107314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news","category-wimbledon","category-wta","tag-2026-wimbledon","tag-amanda-anisimova","tag-ayna-sabalenka","tag-coco-gauff","tag-elena-rybakina","tag-elina-svitolina","tag-iga-swiatek","tag-jessica-pegula","tag-linda-noskova","tag-marta-kostyuk","tag-mirra-andreeva"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5393"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107314"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107363,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107314\/revisions\/107363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}