Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, Victoria Azarenka - Who is World no.1 (2012) ? - Part 2

First and foremost, apologies on my part for being out and not putting up articles. I had my exams in December, and got free on Thursday and now I am back to full swing. (Keeping fingers crossed for my result ) . 

Last month we had a look on the first half of the year, that Azarenka, Sharapova and Serena had. While Azarneka and Sharapova swept through the first half of the year, not that Serena had a bad first half of the year, it was excellent, one for which many players can dream, but it was average when compared to that of Azarneka and Sharapova.

Let us now have a look at the second half of the year of the 3 players and see how they performed during the second half of the year starting from Wimbledon and ending at the Year end Championships in Istanbul.

SUMMARY FOR THE SECOND HALF OF THE YEAR

Description	Azarenka	Sharapova	Williams
Tournaments played	8	6	6
Win - Loss	31-6	23-6	29-1
Record against Top 10 players	7-5	6-5	13-1
Average Rank of player who defeated her	10.33	5.5	7
Titles Won	2	0	5
Runner - Up Showings	1	3	0

The above summary clearly shows that, Williams literally swept everyone aside in the second half of the year, with the only defeat in the second half coming at the hands of Kerber, who was ranked no.7 then in Cincinnati.

- Serena played 6 events in the second half and won all but Cincinati, where she lost her only match of the second half of they year at the hands of Angelique Kerber. 

- Sharapova, like Serena played 6 events, and was always the brides maid, never the bride, as she made it to the finals of 3 events, loosing all, 2 to Williams and one to Azarenka. She failed to make it to the quarter-finals of just one event of the 5 played, which was at Wimbledon, where she lost to then 15th ranked German Sabine Liscki. 

- Azarneka on the other hand played 8 events, winning two of them. She like Sharapova failed to make it to the quarter-finals of just one event (of the 8 events played by her), Montreal, where she retired against the then 43rd ranked Paszek.

Let us have a look at the breakup of the second half of each player, the tournaments each played, and the players each lost to and how far did each player make it in the tournaments she entered.

TOURNAMENT	Azarenka			Sharapova			Serena
	Result	Rank of Player who defeated her	Name of Player who defeated her	Result	Rank of Player who defeated her	Name of Player who defeated her	Result	Rank of Player who defeated her	Name of Player who defeated her
WIMBLEDON	SF	6	Serena	4r	15	Liscki	W	N/A	N/A
STANFORD	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	W	N/A	N/A
OLYMPICS	SF	4	Serena	R-up	4	Williams	W	N/A	N/A
MONTREAL	2r (retired)	43	Paszek	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP
CINCINNATI	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	QF	7	Kerber
US OPEN	R-up	4	Serena	SF	1	Azarenka	W	N/A	N/A
TOKYO	QF (W/O)	6	Kerber	QF	9	Stosur	DNP	DNP	DNP
Beijing	W	N/A	N/A	R-up	1	Azarenka	DNP	DNP	DNP
Linz	W	N/A	N/A	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP
YEC	SF	2	Sharapova	F	3	Williams	W	N/A	N/A

Remarkably, of the 4 events where all three players played, all the  events were won by Serena, in two of those events she defeated both Azarenka and Sharapova (Olympics, and YEC), while in the other two she beat Azarenka (semi-final of Wimbledon and Final of U.S Open).

This shows that Serena had one of the best, probably the best second half of the tennis calender any player ever had.

Let us now come to our question as to why Serena was not rankned no. 1? Please refer to the ranking rule in the Part 1 of this article , since the below summary will be elaborative of that rule.

Category of Tournaments	No. of Tournaments required by WTA Rankings	No. of Tournaments Played.			Points won
		Azarenka	Sharapova	Serena	Azarenka	Sharapova	Serena
Grand Slams	4	4	4	4	4,580	4,580	4,285
Premiere Mandatory	4	4	4	2	2,950	2,350	1,250
WTA Championship	1	1	1	1	530	1,050	1,500
Olympics	1	1	1	1	340	470	685
Premiere 5	2*	4*	2	2	1,125	1,125	620
Others	4	3	1	3	1,070	470	1,060
Total					10,595	10,045	9,400

*Points from the best two Premiere 5 tournaments will count.

Missing Miami and Beijing costed Serena the year end no. 1 ranking, or perhaps the first round loss at the French Open or the fourth round loss at Australian Open costed her the top spot at the end of the year.

But it all ended with Azarenka and Sharapova being ranked ahead of Williams, who in her 30's is still the player to beat. Williams, however, has a chance to grab the top spot by the end of the Austrlain Open 2013, there will be a three way fight for the top spot between Azarenka, Sharapova and Serena Williams.

For now, we can say that Azarenka and Sharapova are rightly ranked ahead of Serena, and that there is no flaw in the ranking system. What do you people think????