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Li Na officially removes her name from the WTA Rankings

Li Na officially removes her name from the WTA Rankings.
Li Na officially removes her name from the WTA Rankings
Li Na officially removes her name from the WTA Rankings

Li Na has officially removed her name from the WTA rankings a week after finishing the season at No. 9. The two-time Slam champion, who reached a career-high No. 2 this year, ends her career with her fourth consecutive top ten finish, quite a feat given she did not play a match after Wimbledon.

What's next for Li Na? Courtney Nguyen's exclusive interview

Li's decision to take her name off the rankings -- she could have let it fall off naturally -- has some rankings implications for players ranked below her. Dominika Cibulkova, who lost to Li in the Australian Open final, moves up from No. 11 to No. 10, matching her career-high. U.S. Open semifinalist Ekaterina Makarova matches her career-high ranking as well, moving up to No. 11. Garbine Muguruza, who had a breakout season after undergoing ankle surgery last year, moves from No. 21 to No. 20 to become the seventh Spanish player to break into the top 20. Muguruza won her first WTA title in Hobart, Australia, in January and made the quarterfinals of the French Open after upending No. 1 Serena Williams in the second round. 

Also moving up to career highs thanks to Li: Karolina Pliskova (No. 23), Barbora Zahlavova Strycova, who beat Li in the last match of her career (No. 25), and Elina Svitolina (No. 28).

Here's how the WTA Top 25 looks now:

  1. Serena Williams
  2. Maria Sharapova
  3. Simona Halep
  4. Petra Kvitova
  5. Ana Ivanovic
  6. Agnieszka Radwanksa
  7. Eugenie Bouchard
  8. Caroline Wozniacki
  9. ​Angelique Kerber
  10. Dominika Cibulkova
  11. Ekaterina Makarova
  12. Flavia Pennetta
  13. Andrea Petkovic
  14. Sara Errani
  15. Jelena Jankovic
  16. Lucie Safarova
  17. Carla Suarez Navarro
  18. Venus Williams
  19. Alize Cornet
  20. Garbine Muguruza
  21. Peng Shuai
  22. Karolina Pliskova
  23. Sam Stosur
  24. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
  25. Barbora Zahlavova Strycova

The best of Li Na quotes: Funny, witty and memorable

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Published | Modified
Courtney Nguyen
COURTNEY NGUYEN

Contributor, SI.com Nguyen is a freelance writer for SI.com, providing full coverage of professional tennis both on and off the court. Her content has become a must-read for fans and insiders to stay up-to-date with a sport that rarely rests. She has appeared on radio and TV talk shows all over the world and is one of the co-hosts of No Challenges Remaining, a weekly podcast available on iTunes. Nguyen graduated from the University of California, Irvine in 1999 and received a law degree from the University of California, Davis in 2002. She lives in the Bay Area.