Undisputed since February, 2013, Serena Williams actually may have to start worrying about her hold on the No. 1 ranking.
Angelique Kerber, Williams' Australian Open conqueror, will return to No. 2 after the conclusion of the Miami Open and pull within 2,600 points of Williams, according to Bleacher Report.
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And surging Victoria Azarenka, who plays in Saturday's Miami Open Final against Svetlana Kuznetsova, will vault into the Top 5 and could pull close to a 4,000-point deficit with a win.
That may seem like a ton of points, which it is, but consider that at the end of August, 2015, Azarenka trailed Williams by 10,450 points.
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2016 Serena is falling victim of 2015 Serena's success. Based on the WTA's point system, she has a lot of points to defend based on her titles and deep runs in tournaments last year.
Williams currently has 9,505 points but will lose 880 because of her fourth-round exit at the Miami Open, a tournament she won last year --- and earned 1,000 points. The 21-time Grand Slam champion had 12,721 points entering last year's U.S. Open
Kerber, who had 3,150 points at the same time last year, will have 6,025 points when Monday's update comes. If Azarenka wins the tournament, she will have 4,530, 4,095 points behind Serena.
Williams "heads into the clay-court season with 4,000 points to defend at the French Open and Wimbledon," Bleacher Report indicates.
Meanwhile, Azarenka has fewer than 1,000 points to defend through Wimbledon, Bleacher Report adds.
While Serena is chasing Steffi Graf's Open-Era record of 22 Grand Slams, she also is 23 weeks behind Graf's record of 186 consecutive weeks at No. 1.
Obviously, the slam mark is Williams' primary goal, but she hasn't won an event since the Cincinnati Masters in August of 2015, and has shown some cracks in her armor that aren't going to go away as easily at age 34 as they did earlier in her career.
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