500 points in the first three months on the year. Not bad. Nothing to suggest she can't repeat that and go at least top 40. If she matches that tally at each GS event and making a few semis and quarters at other Tour events... can't say it's beyond her. Beating Li proves she has the weapons to take her higher and the determination to show she can. FINGERS CROSSED. She's up there, mixing it with some big players and she's not going down easily (apart from Safina in Oz) so hey... she's got every chance of doing it and going higher.

Over 500 points in the first 10 weeks of the year certainly suggests top 20-25 by the end of the year if she continues to amass points at the same rate. However, there are a few reasons why that might not happen:

1) The clay court season starts soon (enough said!)

2) She is clearly on a massive confidence high at the moment. It's hard to believe there won't be a dip at some point during the year and difficult to predict what might happen when her confidence dips and how long she would take to get out of any (mini-)slump, though I would trust Severino to help a lot in that context.

3) She has had some very decent draws this year, e.g. avoiding a seed in R1 of the AO and getting one of the lowest seeds in R2, then getting a top 10 player in IW with a style of play that Elena likes to play against (according to DavidC, whose expertise in matters WTA I trust!) - that's not to take anything away from her achievements, which have been fabulous (and after all, countless Brits haven't made the most of any luck they've had with their draws in the past) but she's almost certain to get a run of rubbish draws at some stage.

Of course, if she managed to keep this hot run of form going for long enough to get to the point where she was seeded for slams, she'd be far more likely to continue to get winnable draws in the first couple of rounds.

Great post, Tutu, I agree with virtually all of that.

I will add something though to the question of ranking points and draws.

Elena has been playing very well, but her actual points total as has been said does owe a lot to draws and she hasn't actually beaten that many top players.  As Tutu says, just four top 100 players going into IW. 

I was looking yesterday at Molik's activity this year, which led me retropspectively to consider her results this year were just as good as Bally's so on these the Molik match was probably about 50-50 and as Bally pointed out afterwards, Molik has more experience of these sort of matches.

Anyway, what was very interesting re draws / points is that in spite of Molik having won 5 of 11 matches ( one loss was Fed Cup ) going into IW, all against players ranked 106 or higher ( other 10 were top 100 ), won 3 of 7 against top 60 players, she had picked up only 166 ranking points compared to Bally's over 400.  She also had a win in Dubia against Jie Zheng ( WR 20 ) and Aus Open semi-finalist on her record 

For instance she won first rounds in $220K tour events against ranks 60 & 56, but lost 2nd round to ranks 18 & 33 respectively.  Also losing in Aus Open to Julie Coin ( WR 75 and the lowest ranked player she  has lost to this year ) kept her out of big points there.

So, yes, we can expect dips during the year from Bally, but even with no dips different draws could very severely cut down her points.

Bally has all the qualities that Tutu mentions such as confidence and fighting ability, but I also agree the "againsts".  The Li victory was really great, but Li can be a bit inconsistent and I don't think it is heresy to suggest that she was maybe a fair bit off her best, and some of Bally's other victories in IW ( closer than expected ) didn't suggest that result was coming. In any event, as Tutu says, upsets like that are not uncommon.

Finally, I think I should emphasise that I do think Bally has indeed had a great start to the year, in case the above seems to be too pessimistic.

Very capable of top 50 this year,which will be a fine achievment if she makes it. But I would  be surprised and delighted if she got very far beyond that and I don't see her getting in to the top 40. 

I think top 30 is achievable. Maybe it's because I only ever really see the british girls on grass (Eastbourne and Wimbledon) which makes them look comparatively good, but if Kaia Kanepi and Martinez Sanchez can get into the top 30 so can Elena Baltacha.

Looking at Elena's points, if she is to make the top 50 this year, it looks to me as though she will need to gather nearly half as much again in points as she did in April to December last year, and getting on towards double last year's April to December points if she is to make top 40.  30th place would look to involve her continuing to gather points for the rest of the year at getting quite close to her rate in the first 3 months, and over twice what she obtained in the last 9 months last year.

Currently once IW points are added :

Jan to March 10  ( 4 counting tournaments )   480
April to Dec  09  ( 12 counting tournaments )  568
Total                                                               1048

Currently 50th place in rankings is 1290 points. She would achieve that with 480 + 810 ( April to Dec 10 )  = 1290 points.

Currently 40th place in the rankings is 1512 points. She would achieve that with 480 + 1032 ( April to Dec 10 ) = 1512 points.

Currently 30th place in the rankings is 1735 points. She would achieve that with 480 + 1255 ( April to Dec 10 ) = 1735 points.

I really don't know why she is usually so bad in the US. One would think her game would flourish on fast hardcourts.