🔗 Share this article

Britain's Katie Boulter admits she feels she has to "choose between my body and my ranking" as the competition persists for a position in the upcoming January Australian Open primary competition.

While the standard WTA Tour competitive period is over, there are still position points to be won in Latin American countries, regional locations, various venues and European destinations.

The women's competitor lineup for the initial Grand Slam of the 2026 season will be based on the world rankings of 8 December, which could cause a challenging situation for competitors near the cut.

Injury Concerns

Former British top-ranked player Boulter suffered an abductor in her last tournament of the year in international locations last month, and is now evaluating whether to participate in the WTA 125 development competition in European venues, France, in the initial week of December.

Boulter's ongoing health concern, and the fact she would need to secure at least multiple victories in the European event to boost her ranking, means she may well end up not playing.

Varying Approaches

In contrast, male players are not experiencing the identical predicament, as for the first time the men's Australian Open entry list will be drawn up from current week's positions, which is the ATP's standard season-concluding standing calculation.

The adjustment is aimed at preventing athletes from pursuing ranking points during what is fundamentally the off-season.

Training Transitions

This year has been a difficult one for Boulter.

She achieved merely fourteen Tour-level primary competition games and currently separated with instructor Biljana Veselinovic after a lengthy working relationship in which she secured multiple WTA victories.

"Biljana is an outstanding instructor, and an remarkably good human as well, which creates situations extremely hard," Boulter said.

The search for a replacement instructor is currently ongoing, looking for a professional who has top-tier experience as Boulter still believes she can be a top-20 athlete.

Future Goals

"Moving ahead with a different trainer, one thing I'm very clear on is that they are going to be someone who has considerable knowledge in how to make it to the very top level of this sport," she explained.

"I've been placed as high as 23 and I am confident I can climb back to that level. I don't believe my standard has disappeared, I feel the steadiness needs to develop.

"My objective is not merely to be positioned 50, forty, thirty, 20 - we've accomplished that. The goal is to be within the elite group."