Hamburg  - American Serena Williams has regained the women's world number one tennis ranking after beating Dinara Safina in two sets in the final of the Australian Open on Saturday.

Williams heads the rankings published by the ruling body WTA on Monday by 282 points from Safina. Williams has 9,432 points, while the Russian stands on 9,150 points.

Serbian Jelena Jankovic, who topped the rankings ahead of the Australian Open, slipped to third, with Nadia Petrova the only newcomer into the top ten.

The Russian is tenth with 3,882 points.

WTA top 10 as of February 2 (previous ranking in parenthesis): <# 1. (2) Serena Williams, US, 9,432 2. (3) Dinara Safina, Russia, 9,150 3. (1) Jelena Jankovic, Serbia, 8,580 4. (4) Elena Dementieva, Russia, 8,216 5. (7) Vera Zvonareva, Russia, 6,640 6. (6) Venus Williams, US, 6,144 7. (8) Svetlana Kuznetsova, Russia, 5,510 8. (5) Ana Ivanovic, Serbia, 5,492 9.(10) Agnieszka Radwanska, Poland, 3,977 10.(11) Nadia Petrova, Russia, 3,882 <# (dpa)