The Most Overrated and Underrated WTA Players, by the Numbers
Most "underrated player" lists are arguments dressed up as rankings. We built this one from the data.
Every player has an Elo rating, a number that tracks how strong she actually is based on who she has beaten and how surprising those wins were. Rank the tour by Elo, line it up against the official WTA ranking, and the mismatches are where the points table looks wrong.
We keep this page current and update the figures as the model moves. Looking for the men's tour? Here are the most overrated and underrated ATP players.
How we rank overrated and underrated players
Sort the tour by overall Elo, give every player an Elo rank, then subtract that from her official rank. A player ranked 100th in the world but 40th by Elo has a gap of plus 60, which makes her underrated. Flip it: ranked 50th but 150th by Elo means overrated by 100 places.
We kept the list to the official top 150 and required at least 20 rated matches, so one hot week cannot fake a rating. If the idea is new to you, start with Elo vs ATP ranking: what the official points miss.
The most underrated WTA players right now
| Player | Official rank | Elo rank | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Xiyu Wang | 148 | 26 | +122 |
| Emerson Jones | 136 | 40 | +96 |
| Lisa Pigato | 141 | 52 | +89 |
| Karolina Pliskova | 130 | 44 | +86 |
| Alina Korneeva | 117 | 31 | +86 |
| Maja Chwalinska | 114 | 34 | +80 |
| Darja Vidmanova | 116 | 39 | +77 |
| Daria Snigur | 93 | 26 | +67 |
Xiyu Wang is the new name at the top: 148th in the rankings while Elo has her inside the top 30, a gap of more than 120 places. Former world No. 1 Karolina Pliskova is still here too, 130th in the points with top-45 Elo a month after she led this page.
The list splits into two stories. Comeback players like Pliskova are the familiar case. The WTA ranking is a rolling 52-week total, so a few months out with injury wipes last year's points even when you did not lose your way down the list, while Elo holds the level your results earned. The other story is young risers. Emerson Jones, Alina Korneeva, and Darja Vidmanova are climbing faster than the points table can register. Both kinds make for nasty early-round draws: strong enough to beat seeds, ranked low enough to meet them early.
The most overrated WTA players
| Player | Official rank | Elo rank | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elsa Jacquemot | 67 | 208 | −141 |
| Magdalena Frech | 46 | 182 | −136 |
| Maya Joint | 52 | 179 | −127 |
| Veronika Erjavec | 84 | 206 | −122 |
| Cristina Bucsa | 33 | 145 | −112 |
| Moyuka Uchijima | 107 | 219 | −112 |
Cristina Bucsa is the highest-ranked name on this side of the ledger. She sits 33rd in the points, but Elo puts her outside the top 140. That is less an insult than a flag. A ranking can stay high on points the model treats as soft, whether they were earned a while ago or won at WTA 125 and ITF events against weaker fields. The gaps around her, from Magdalena Frech at 46th to Elsa Jacquemot at 67th, usually come from that kind of run: real points, weaker opposition than Elo sees week to week at tour level.
The ranking says they belong. The model wants to see it against stronger fields first.
What the gaps don't tell you
Elo measures results, not fitness. A player on the way back can hold a rating her body has not matched yet, and a player with few matches can post a number that is mostly small-sample noise, which is why we required at least 20. This is also an all-surface view, so a player underrated on hard courts may look different on clay.
Use both lists as a watchlist, not a verdict. The live version updates after every match on the WTA rankings page, and the matchups it points to land in today's predictions.