At the recent Australian Open, Simona Halep has recently lost both the final and the world no.1 rank at the hands of a fantastic Caroline Wozniacki. Now ranked no.2, the Romanian has a big chance to regain the top spot in the rankings after Doha.

How Simona can get back to world no.1.

Simona is just 249pts shy from Caroline Wozniacki, but the Dane needs to defend 585pts from last year final while Simona didn’t play the tournament. That means that Halep will have a “lead” of 585-249= 336pts over the actual world no.1.

Therefore, Simona will be back at the top of the rankings if she outperforms Caroline in Doha or if she loses in the same round. There are also some other scenarios that are favorable to Simona. For example, if she reaches the final, she can overtake Wozniacki if the Dane doesn’t get to the semifinal.

Also, Wozniacki had a rather lousy draw to possibly face Sharapova in the 3^rd round and an in-form Kerber in the quarters.

On the other side, Simona has a fantastic draw to possible face Karolina Pliskova in the quarters (Halep has an outstanding 6-1 H2H record against the Czech), and she may face a struggling Muguruza in the semifinal.

Here the full draw.