Romanian tennis player Simona Halep has climbed one spot advancing to the third position in the world ranking of professional tennis players (Women's Tennis Association - WTA), released on Monday.

Halep, who is not playing in the first week of the year, follows Australian Ashleigh Barty and Czech Karolina Pliskova (Czech Republic) in the ranking, with second-ranked Karolina Pliskova only having less than 100 points more than Halep. Romanian-born Canadian player Bianca Andreescu ranks 6th.

The other Romanian players in top 100 are Sorana Cirstea, stagnating at 74, and Ana Bogdan, who climbed one step to 97.

In the doubles ranking, there are four Romanians in the top 100, ranked 45th (+2) - Monica Niculescu, 46th (+2) - Raluca Olaru, 73rd (stagnating) - Irina Begu and 86th (stagnating) - Irina Bara.

The singles WTA ranking:

1 (1). Ashleigh Barty (Australia) 7,851 points
2 (2). Karolina Pliskova (Czech Republic) 5,525
3 (4). Simona Halep 5,462
4 (3). Naomi Osaka (Japan) 5,311
5 (6). Elina Svitolina (Ukraine) 5,075
6 (5). Bianca Andreescu (Canada) 4,935
7 (7). Petra Kvitova (Czech Republic) 4,721
8 (8). Belinda Bencic (Switzerland) 4,685
9 (9). Kiki Bertens (The Netherlands) 4,245
10 (10). Serena Williams (USA) 3,935
..........................................................
74 (74). Sorana Cirstea 778
97 (98). Ana Bogdan 684
101 (102). Irina-Camelia Begu 669
112 (113). Mihaela Buzarnescu 596
113 (114). Patricia Maria Tig 593
127 (118). Monica Niculescu 488
161 (164). Irina Bara 367
182 (185). Elena-Gabriela Ruse 325
208 (211). Jaqueline Cristian 285
217 (220). Laura Ioana Paar 277
268 (269). Alexandra Cadantu 220
281 (282). Nicoleta Dascalu 203
...

WTA doubles ranking
1 (1). Barbora Strycova (Czech Republic) 7,110 points
2 (3). Timea Babos (Hungary) 6,915
3 (2). Kristina Mladenovic (France) 6,900
4 (4). Su-Wei Hsieh (Taiwan) 6,705
5 (5). Arina Sabalenka (Belarus) 6,655
6 (6). Elise Mertens (Belgium) 6,615
7 (7). Katerina Siniakova (Czech Republic) 4,955
8 (8). Yifan Xu (China) 4,950
8 (8). Gabriela Dabrowski (Canada) 4,950
10 (10). Shuai Zhang (China) 4,705
......................................................
45 (47). Monica Niculescu 1,587
46 (48). Raluca Olaru 1,565
73 (73). Irina-Camelia Begu 1,205
86 (86). Irina Bara 1,046
...
AGERPRES (RO-author: Mihai Tenea, editor: Vlad Constantinescu; EN - author: Cristina Zaharia, editor: Adina Panaitescu)