The Five Best Female Tennis Players of All-time
Ultimately, I chose Navratilova, but in reality, this decision was as tough as any I’ve ever had to make regarding two athletes on one of my “greatest of all-time” columns. Without further delay, here are the top five female tennis players of all-time.
Martina Navratilova
I chose Navratilova ultimately because I think the era she played in consisted of better players – and certainly several more who were near her caliber than Graf faced in her career.
Navratilova won 18 Grand Slam singles titles and 40 Grand Slam doubles titles (31 women’s doubles and 9 mixed doubles). She also won the women’s singles title at Wimbledon a record 9 times.
Incredibly, Navratilova, who was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2000, is still playing competitive tennis – albeit occasionally.
In 2003, she won the mixed doubles titles at both the Australian Open and Wimbledon to make her the oldest ever Grand Slam champion (aged 46 years, 8 months). Navratilova also won a singles match at the first round of Wimbledon in 2004, aged 47 years and 8 months, to make her the oldest player to win a professional singles match in the Open Era. Her most recent title came on May 27, at the Internationaux de Strasbourg in Strasbourg, France, where she won the women’s doubles event partnering with Liezel Huber.
Simply put, there has never been a player that has come close to Navratilova’s longevity and world class level of play. There have been a multitude of memorable female tennis players who have certainly left their mark on the sport forever, but none more so than Martina Navratilova – the greatest female tennis player of all-time.
Steffi Graf
Graf, my favorite female tennis player ever, is undoubtedly one of the greatest female tennis players ever – if not the best. Graf won an amazing 22 Grand Slam singles titles and in 1988, became the only player to achieve the “Golden Slam” – capturing all four Grand Slam singles titles and the Olympic gold medal in the same year.
Graf was the No. 1 player for a record 377 weeks (the longest of any player, male or female, since rankings began) and is the only player, male or female, to have won all four Grand Slam singles tournaments (Wimbledon, the US Open, the French Open and the Australian Open) at least four times each.
Graf’s powerful forehand, which is arguably the greatest the women’s game has ever seen, earned her the nickname “Fraulein Forehand.”
During her career, Graf won 107 singles titles and 11 doubles titles. Her 22 Grand Slam singles titles are second only to Margaret Court, who won 24.
Graf won 7 singles titles at Wimbledon, 6 singles titles at the French Open, 5 singles titles at the US Open, and 4 singles titles at the Australian Open. Her overall record in 56 Grand Slam events was 282-34 (89 percent) and she was ranked No. 1 for 377 weeks, including a record 186 consecutive weeks (from August 1987-March 1991) – longer than any other player – male or female.
No matter where I have Graf ranked, she is undoubtedly one of the greatest female tennis players of all-time.
Chris Evert
During her illustrious career, Evert won 18 Grand Slam singles titles, including a record seven at the French Open. Evert also won three Grand Slam doubles titles and sports a career win-loss record in singles matches of 1,309-146 (.900) – the best of any professional player in tennis history, male or female.
Evert was the ultimate baseline player and unlike Navratilova and Graf, never truly developed a serve-and-volley game, which, in reality, makes her immense accomplishments even more remarkable.
The thing I truly appreciated about Evert was how she was able to adapt her baseline style to succeed on all surfaces. She is also credited with being the innovator of the “two-handed backhand,” a shot that would inspire generations of young players, both male and female, to copy her powerful shot. Evert also had the best return-of-service game of any female I’ve ever seen.
When she retired from the professional tour in 1989, she had won 157 singles titles and eight doubles titles in her career. Amazingly, she reached the semifinals in 273 of the 303 tournaments she entered and won at least one Grand Slam singles title each year for 13 consecutive years from 1974 through 1986. She won 18 Grand Slam singles titles during her career: 7 at the French Open, 6 at the US Open, 3 at Wimbledon, and 2 at the Australian Open.
I firmly believe that Evert is the third best player of all-time – and certainly one of the finest female tennis players of all-time.
Billie Jean King
Who can ever forget Billie Jean King? No one – that’s who. King is undeniably the most important women’s tennis players of all-time and possibly the most important figure in the evolution of women’s sports – period.
I could get into many of her off-court accomplishments like the fact that King was instrumental in establishing the women’s tennis tour in the 1970s, and worked tirelessly to promote it. Or the fact that she became the first president of the women’s players union – the Women’s Tennis Association – in 1973.
However, since this column is dedicated to selecting the five best female tennis players of all-time based on their on-court careers, that is what I will focus on with King as well.
King won 12 Grand Slam singles titles, 14 Grand Slam women’s doubles titles, and 11 Grand Slam mixed doubles titles. In 1966, King won the first of her six singles titles at Wimbledon. She followed that up in 1967 by winning the singles titles at both Wimbledon and the US Championships and by that point had developed a reputation as an aggressive, hard-hitting net-rusher, with excellent speed and a highly competitive personality.
King was ranked first in the world five times (1966 – 68, ’72 and 1974) and won 6 Grand Slam singles titles at Wimbledon, 4 at the US Championships/Open, 1 each at the French Open and Australian Championships. Amazingly, King won the last 7 Grand Slam singles finals in which she played.
In 1972, King became the first tennis player to be named Sports Illustrated Sportsman of The Year. King was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1987. In 1990, Life magazine named her one of the “100 Most Important Americans of the 20th Century.”
Love her or loathe her, Billy Jean King in undeniably one of the greatest female tennis players of all-time.
Margaret Smith Court
Between 1960 and 1975, Court won a record 62 Grand Slam titles – 24 singles, 19 women’s doubles and 19 mixed doubles. In 1970, she became only the second woman player to win all four Grand Slam singles titles the same calendar year.
Court is one of only three players to have achieved a career “boxed set” of Grand Slam titles, i.e. winning every possible Grand Slam title – singles, same-sex doubles and mixed doubles – at all four of the Grand Slam events. The others are Doris Hart and Martina NavrÃ?¡tilovÃ?¡.
In 1979, Court was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Her incredible won-lost record in Grand Slam singles tournaments was 210-23 (.901). Court was ranked No. 1 in the world seven times (1962 through 1965, 1969, 1970 and 1973) and remains to this very day one of the best female tennis players of all-time.
