indiana wrote:

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Venus has more 'guaranteed' race points than Caroline so it is entirely possible that Venus is definitely there and Caroline not, though no doubt Caroline will make it.

Venus has 4612 race points from just 13 counters so room to add in the Beijing Premier Mandatory points.

Caroline though having 4620 race points, these come from a full 16 counters ( plus another 4 not counting ). She has to ultimately count the Beijing mandatory points so will drop her 16th counter ( 100 points ). So after Beijing her race points will be 4620 - 100 + Beijing points ( Jo is another with a full set of counters so will next week have to drop 55 to count her Beijing points ).

So the WTA has a rather interesting race in that you can go backwards, particularly come the final mandatory when players are most likely to already have a full house.

The ATP avoids this scenario by always having the maximum number of race counters = 18 less the number of mandatories still to be played. So currently in the ATP race the maximum counters are 16, ie 18 - 2 ( the Shanghai and Paris Masters ). This applies to all players whether they are at all likely Slam / Masters competitors or not, e.g. Jay Clarke can only have 16 counters just now although he has 'spares' which he will be able to add as the Shanghai and Paris tournaments are played.

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 thanks for that Indi, I had no idea that is how it worked in reality. I understood the ATP side but had no idea it was different in the WTA! 

Ostapenko and Barty see off Muguruza and Ka Pliskova respectively ( so yes I admit more evidence of Barty's very decent form ) and we have a last 4 in this Premier 5 of (8) Ostapenko, Barty, (Q) Sakkari and Garcia.

Now I realise Garcia is coming from a very long way back ( would need to win both the Wuhan and Beijing titles to have a chance of overtaking Jo in the race in the next two weeks ), but feel free to beat her someone.

Still, for now Jon's "bold prediction" should come to pass. I just hope if and when it does Jo can yet find something more in her game late in the season to bring to the Singapore occasion.

Ostapenko did withdraw from her doubles earlier in the week with what the drawsheet calls "dizziness" ( same reason as given for Witthoeft retiring in the doubles in the next round ) so maybe a rather more temporary "off colour" issue.