Berlin, Jun 25 (IANS): The important second week of WTA Tour's 2024 grass court swing ahead of the Wimbledon Championship ended with Jessica Pegula taking home the WTA 500 title and resulted in Anna Kalinskaya entering the top 20 in WTA Rankings. On Sunday, Pegula pulled off a double-duty winning performance, beating Coco Gauff in the semifinals before saving five match points in the final to edge Kalinskaya.
In Birmingham, a WTA 250-level event, Yulia Putintseva knocked off Ajla Tomljanovic to win the third title of her career.
Of the four finalists, Kalinskaya is the one who has reached a new milestone in this week's edition of the WTA Rankings. The 25-year-old climbed seven places from No.24 to No.17, entering the Top 20 for the first time. Kalinskaya is the fourth player to make her Top 20 debut this year, following Jasmine Paolini, Emma Navarro, and Marta Kostyuk.
Kalinskaya, who was ranked as low as No.115 last October, has put together a breakthrough season. In Australia, she reached her first Grand Slam quarterfinal and followed it with her first tour-level final, at the Dubai WTA 1000 in February. Though Kalinskaya missed those championship points in an attempt to win her first title, her run in the German capital was another measure of her improvement this year.
Putintseva and Tomljanovic were also rewarded with significant rankings boosts after their efforts in Birmingham. Putintseva, who won her first title since 2021 and the first of her career on grass, rises seven places to No.34. It's the Kazakhstan player's highest placement since July 2022 and only seven spots off the career high of No.27 she hit in both 2017 and 2020.
Tomljanovic was playing just the fourth tournament of her comeback from surgery to remove non-cancerous uterine tumors, which sidelined her between January and May this year. But she hit the ground running to reach her fifth career final, her first since Hua Hin 2019 and her first on grass. The Australian -- who also missed most of the 2023 season with knee surgery -- rises 55 places from No.190 to No.135.