Vargas finishes as clear No. 1 in LPRT rankings

María José Vargas didn’t just win the LPRT season, she separated from it. The 2025-26 rankings closed with Vargas at No. 1 on 1,703.5 points, a massive cushion over Paola Longoria’s 919 and Montse Mejia’s 866.5, a spread that turned the final table into a snapshot of one player pulling away while the next tier fought for position.

The gap at the top tells the story best. Vargas finished 784.5 points ahead of Longoria and 837 points ahead of Mejia, a margin that made the No. 1 spot unmistakable by season’s end. Longoria and Mejia, both listed out of Monterrey, held the other two podium places, but neither could close the distance once Vargas kept turning deep runs into points over the course of a schedule that stretched across Colorado, California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Florida and Virginia.

The biggest shake-up came just below that top tier. Valeria Centellas climbed from No. 8 to No. 4 and finished with 539.5 points, just 9 points ahead of Natalia Mendez at 530.5. That jump was fueled by a strong second half and a finals appearance at the Northern Virginia Invitational, where Centellas reached her first pro final and announced herself as much more than a mid-table mover. The rankings listed Centellas from Buenos Aires, Argentina, and her rise squeezed the middle of the leaderboard into a far tighter race than the top.

Behind Centellas and Mendez, the chase pack stayed congested. Gaby Martinez finished sixth with 493 points, followed by Brenda Laime at 341, Alexandra Herrera at 340 and Carla Muñoz at 338.5, a cluster separated by only 2.5 points from seventh through ninth. Cristina Amaya rounded out the top 10 with 263.5, while the next tier included Sheryl Lotts, Samantha Salas, Annie Sanchez-Roberts, Maria Renee Rodriguez Josey, Rhonda Rajsich and Lexi York, further proof that the women’s tour still had depth even as Vargas stood alone at the top.

The season ended on June 17, after the Northern Virginia Invitational ran June 5-7 at Worldgate Athletic Club & Spa in Herndon, Virginia. That stop was built as a sponsor-centered event on just three courts, with prize money in every division and Saturday afternoon pro-am doubles, a compact finish to a season that produced a clear champion but left several rivalries sharpened for the next ranking battle.