I think it's 4 GS titles now? Anyway her lead over #2 grows smaller and smaller since her ridiculous adventage over the field in 2022. She is defending champion at USO so big pressure on her to make a big run in the NA.
3 grand slams during her time as world no. 1, which she got on the back of her title wins in Doha, Indian Wells and Miami last year. I think from memory if Barty’s name hadn’t been removed from the rankings per her request after she retired, she would have 3 more weeks as the world no. 1 (though she had a sizeable number of weeks as world no. 1 when she didn’t play during the pandemic chaos) before Swiatek took over.
Sabalenka was 1 match away from becoming world no. 1 at Wimbledon, but of course lost to Jabeur in her semi-final. It addition to seeing if Swiatek can defend as many points as possible this summer (she has shown more signs of getting rattled after losing sets recently), it will interesting to see how much energy Sabalenka has left in tank after her very strong results and consistency with a lot of matches so far this year.
Getting to world no. 1 is huge, finishing as the year end no. 1 is even more huge, and a ‘wall to wall’ year spending every week as world no. 1 is incredible if any player including her can pull that off.
I saw that Pegula is world no. 3, though way behind Sabalenka, having not reached a grand slam semi-final in the last 52 weeks (or ever), and with just 1 title win (albeit a big one at Guadalajara last year) and 1 other final appearance during that period.