Venus Williams was No. 2 on Sunday and will be No. 2 again on Monday.
Williams finished in the No. 2 position at the Madrid Masters Sunday, losing the championship match to Aravane Rezai of France 6-2, 7-5. However, with her performance in Madrid, she will move to the No. 2 ranking on the WTA Tour, one slot below younger sister Serena.
By losing to Rezai Sunday, Williams lost out on a chance to win her 44th career WTA Tour title, which would have moved out of a tie with Martina Hingis and into sole possession of the No. 10 position all-time in most WTA Tour singles.
As documented in the historical book THE BUD COLLINS HISTORY OF TENNIS ($35.95, New Chapter Press, www.NewChapterMedia.com), the top 10 in most all-time WTA Tour singles titles are as follows;
167 Martina Navratilova
154 Chris Evert
107 Steffi Graf
92 Margaret Smith Court
68 Evonne Goolagong
67 Billie Jean King
55 Lindsay Davenport
55 Virginia Wade
53 Monica Seles
44 Venus Williams
The title marked the biggest win of Rezai’s career. She rallied from 4-1 down in the second set after winning the first to take victory in just under one and three-quarter hours. The unseeded Frenchwoman, who beat world No. 4 Jelena Jankovic in the quarterfinals won the last five games of the match to seal the win. It was the third title of her career after wins in Strasbourg and Bali last year. It sets the 23-year-old from St. Etienne up nicely as a dark-horse underdog at the French Open starting later this month.