best women The key to her success? At 15, she became the youngest from Britain to play senior Wimbledon in almost 100 years. Career: 1997-2007 (first retirement), 2009-2012 (second retirement), 2020-present. Died: Nov. 12, 1982, Kidderminster, U.K. (Age 73). You could tell Chris would become a star. Born: October 6, 1905, Centreville, California, Died: January 1, 1998, Carmel, California (Age 92). Before her, the game was seen as the exclusive domain of the elite, West European-American world. Throughout her 11 year career, she showed she was a continually great competitor. Rebecca Joyce. The daughter of British aristocrats Ralph Percy and Jane Richard, Lady Melissa Percy quit school at 14 to follow a career in tennis. ", Plays: Left-handed (two-handed both sides). The most important match of her life was seen by more than 90 million people when she beat Bobby Riggs in the now famous Battle of the Sexes. Helen Wills was the undisputed greatest player of her era. Tennis has seen a slew of epic rivalries throughout the course of, Read More 15 Greatest Rivalries In Tennis HistoryContinue, Over the last couple of decades, the tennis court has turned into a home for some very tall players. Born: July 5, 1979, Saint-Germain-En-Laye, France. The other Serbian woman who emerged as a star in the 2000s, Ana Ivanovic matched Jelena Jankovic by earning the world No.1 ranking spot in 2008. When she was able to win, many people saw this as a monumental moment in womens sports. Billie Jean King takes on Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes. It was a pretty amazing feat given that she had given birth to her first daughter in the intervening years. top 5 greatest British tennis players of all time Played: Right-handed (one-handed backhand). 2 who turned pro in 1968 and retired in 1986. Johanna Konta is a British tennis player who represented Australia till 2012. And after beating Serena to win the French, she became the first woman to best both Williams sisters in Grand Slam finals. Serena Williams is the greatest of all tines in North America. British Female Tennis Players By the end of 1993, she was burned out of tennis, taking over a year off and dealing with arrest, drug use, and more. She dominated on clay, popularising the two-handed backhand and the idea of staying on the baseline. Serena Williams; Steffi Graf; Martina Navritolova; Chris Evert; Margaret Court; Monica Seles; Billie Jean King; Venus Williams; Evonne Goolagong Cawley; Justine Henin; Martina Hingis; Helen Wills Moody; Maureen Connolly; Lindsay Davenport; Kim Clijsters; Jennifer Vote up the best women's tennis players ever. Best British Female Tennis Players of All Time From trailblazing legends like Billie Jean King to champions like Serena Williams, dominant athletes on the tennis court have elevated womens sports to new heights. 10 Rosewall. Who is the best of the best? In fact he was the first British man since the 70s to reach a Grand Slam semi-final position. A popular tennis player, Jones won eight Grand Slam titles during her career. Now married to Andre Agassi, she has formed perhaps the most powerful tennis partnership in the history of the sport. You as fellow tennis players and tennis commentators, they will say Serena is the best female tennis player of all times. best women If a player has a great serve, they have the chance to consistently win their games. Even the great Serena Williams would have struggled to get the ball past a prime Navratilova at the net. She also holds the record for five consecutive years ending the season number one in singles. Most Successful British Tennis Players Of All She previously won a junior title at Wimbledon. She also became a huge inspiration for a lot of mothers when she came back after giving birth. Bottom line: What Arthur Ashe did for African-American men in tennis, Althea Gibson accomplished for African-American women. She finished with 98 total weeks at world number one, and three Grand Slam titles. She had most of her success at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, winning a total of 10 titles between the two. She also won 12 doubles titles, including the WTA Austrian Open. Going off of numbers, she still has the most Grand Slam singles titles at 24. Despite barely being 55 tall, she could hang in with just about any player on tour. In 2020, she announced yet another return to the game, hoping to add more titles to her mantle. From that point on, she raised her game to something otherworldly probably the highest sustained level of excellence I have ever seen from a female tennis player. Still, winning a total of nine grand slam singles titles is pretty impressive. Jennifer Capriati had colossal expectations placed on her from a very young age. By doing so, she broke her countrys Grand Slam title drought, becoming the first Australian woman to win once since Evonne Goolangong Cawley in 1980, Born: Feb. 28, 1985, Belgrade, Yugoslavia. 3. In an epic match against her frequent doubles partner Louise Brough, the battle between the two of them went to Osborne by a score of 15-13 in the third set. As a player, she became the first woman from Spain to take home the Wimbledon title in 1994, winning an epic three-set classic over the heavily favored Martina Navratilova. Tennis is truly a global sport these days, with top players representing countries all around the globe. She first gained attention after winning the Lemon Bowl at 11 and now has five singles and four doubles titles in her kitty. Marion Bartoli gave the tennis world one of its great underdog stories. She then shocked the tennis world again by coming back and reaching new heights, winning three more Grand Slam titles. She previously won a junior title at Wimbledon. You ask the average white person, Serenas name will not be mentioned. Although Ivanovic never won another Slam, she showed persistence and determination by overcoming multiple injuries to reach the top 5 again late in her career. Entering her first tournaments as a teenager, it took Round nearly a decade to have success at the highest level of tennis. Bottom line:The daughter of a Norwegian Army officer, Molla Mallory won matches with a power game atypical of her era. Venus and Serena Williams form arguably the most iconic pairing of siblings in sports history. She previously won a junior title at Wimbledon. But overcome it Gooolagong did. She retired in 2020, bringing her storied career to a close. Overnight, she was gracing fashion magazine covers and starring in television commercials around the world. Playing in the 1950s, when segregation was still the law of the land in America, Gibson became the first African-American woman to win Grand Slam titles, amassing five. A former world No. When the open era first started taking off in womens tennis, Evonne Goolagong Cawley was one of the first to start winning consistently. She played with a serve-and-volley style, which even in her time was declining, but she found great success with it. She was never particularly great on clay, despite growing up on it and being a native of France. Simona Halep has established herself as one of the most consistent players on the womens tour in tennis history while showing what it takes to perform on the greatest stage. Female athletes continue to fight for equality in sports, and tennis players have been at the forefront of that struggle for decades. Justine Henin is one of the greatest and most underrated players in womens tennis. Her first Grand Slam victory came in 1968 at the US Open, and shed go on to win 55 singles titles throughout her career. Svetlana Kuznetsova is something of a tennis enigma. Christine Truman Margaret Court doubles Wimbledon By fotograaf onbekend / CC BY-SA 3.0 NL (https://creativecommons. Talk about a child prodigy Tim Henman. WebMonica Seles is a part-Hungarian, part-Yugoslavian, and part-American former womens tennis pro who had all the makings of one of the greatest tennis players to ever live. 9 Agassi and No. Murrays tally of 46 singles titles is good for 14th on the all-time list, just behind Boris Becker and ahead of greats including Arthur Ashe and Stefan Edberg. Seles started her career young, turning pro in 1989, aged just 16. From trailblazing legends like Billie Jean King to champions like Serena Williams, dominant athletes on the tennis court have elevated womens sports to new heights. With the record-holding 23 Grand Slam titles to her name, its hard to not put her at the No.1 spot. Lindsay Davenport was a model of consistency at the top of the game. Born: Aug. 25, 1927, Silver, South Carolina, Died: Sept. 28, 2003, East Orange, New Jersey (Age 76). For years, however, the title most befitting a serve-and-volley player, Wimbledon, eluded her. She won seven grand slams and an Olympic gold medal in a hugely competitive era in the womens game. 100 Greatest of All Time Now 39 years old, she hasnt called it quits just yet. Serena Williams has been dominant for such a long period of time. There were so many great Graf matches. In the early 1950s, she took the tennis world by storm, winning six straight Grand Slam singles titles between 1952 and 1953. top 5 greatest British tennis players of all time Evert gave American fans an incredible champion to cheer for as she won 157 titles and 18 Grand Slams. 4 and former British number one, Johanna Konta is renowned for creating sharp angles and an offensive baseline play. Victoria Azarenka put the tiny, post-Soviet republic of Belarus on the tennis map, winning the Australian Open back to back in 2012 and 2013. Steffi Graf. She became the first Grand Slam winner from Japan after stunning the tennis world with a finals win over Serena Williams at the 2018 U.S. Open. Kim Clijsters was often overshadowed by her fellow Belgian Justine Henin, but they both deserve a spot on this list. Although she represented France in national play, she made history as the first Canadian-born player to win a Grand Slam and was the most recent French player (to date) to win the Roland Garros title. Post-retirement, she has been working as a coach and a BBC and Eurosport commentator. Godfree won two Wimbledon singles titles. She had lost her last two matches against Navratilova the Wimbledon and US Open finals of 1987 and this was her first meeting against her fellow GOAT candidate during her legendary Golden Slam-winning year. WebVirginia Wade and Andy Murray are the most successful British tennis players in the Open Era by singles titles. Li Na completed the transformation of tennis into a global game. Ranker Tennis. Seles started her career young, turning pro in 1989, aged just 16. Female athletes continue to fight for equality in sports, and tennis players have been at the forefront of that struggle for decades. At only 22 years, Naomi Osaka has established herself as an iconic tennis star and champion. She retired in 2008, picking up a hugely impressive 53 career titles, including 9 Grand Slams.