Who Is The Best Womens Tennis Player?
There’s no doubt that Serena Williams is one of the greatest tennis players of all time. But is she the best ever? Let’s take a look at the stats and decide for ourselves.
Serena Williams
Serena Williams is an American professional tennis player. The Women’s Tennis Association ranked her world No. 1 in singles on eight separate occasions between 2002 and 2017. She reached the No. 1 ranking for the first time on July 8, 2002.
Early life and background
Serena Jameka Williams was born on September 26, 1981, in Saginaw, Michigan, to Oracene Price and Richard Williams. She is the youngest of Price’s five daughters: Lyronics, Yetunde, Isha, and Venus being her elder sisters.Price moved the family from Detroit to Compton in May 1980 when Serena was just nine months old; according to Serena, she grew up “very poor” and experienced sporadic visits from her father.
Williams began playing tennis when she was just four years old and became a regional champion at age 10. Her father has been cited as the biggest influence in her career; he coached her from an early age until she joined the WTA Tour. Williams has also credited her mother with helping her become “mentally tough”, although she has said that she adopts a more independent approach than her father does.
When Williams was nine years old, an unpleasant incident occurred at one of her tennis tournaments. As noted in an interview by USA Today reporter Tempelton Peabo III, a white umpire called one of Williams’ shots “out” even though the ball landed well within the boundary. After the match, which Williams lost 6–0 6–3 to Noelle Pallasen-Billie Jean King Cup 12s Final event in Carson, California – despite being only nine years old at the time), Richard angrily confronted the umpire; as a result of his outburst Richard was removed from the tournament by officials.
Professional career
Serena Williams has been a dominant force in women’s tennis for more than two decades. She has won an astonishing 23 Grand Slam singles titles, the most of any active female player.
Williamsturned professional in 1995 and was the WTA’s top-ranked singles player for 319 weeks – a record she still holds today. In 2002, she achieved the rare feat of winning three Grand Slams in a single calendar year. Williams went on to win her first French Open in 2013 and completed the “Serena Slam” by winning Wimbledon in 2015.
The following year, Williams suffered a shocking upset in the first round of the U.S. Open. But she rebounded in style by taking home her seventh Wimbledon title just a few weeks later. This put her level with German legend Steffi Graf for the most major singles titles won by a female player in the Open Era.
Williams then captured her record-equaling 22nd major title at the 2017 Australian Open, defeating sister Venus Williams in the final. The next month, she announced she was pregnant and took the rest of that season off before returning to action in early 2018.
In September 2018, just 10 months after giving birth, Williams reached her eighth Wimbledon final but lost to German player Angelique Kerber. The following year, at age 37, she won the Wimbledon doubles title with partner Andy Murray – making her only the second woman ever to win all four Grand Slam doubles titles with different partners.
Major accomplishments
Serena Jameka Williams is an American professional tennis player who is ranked No. 1 in women’s singles tennis. The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) has ranked her world No. 1 in singles on eight separate occasions between 2002 and 2017. She reached the No. 1 ranking for the first time on July 8, 2002. On her sixth occasion, she held the ranking for 186 consecutive weeks, tying a record set by Steffi Graf. In total, she has been No. 1 for 319 weeks, which ranks third in the Open Era among female players behind Graf and Martina Navratilova.
Maria Sharapova
Maria Sharapova is one of the most successful female tennis players of all time. She has won five Grand Slam singles titles, including the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open. She has also been ranked world No. 1 by the Women’s Tennis Association on five separate occasions. She is the only Russian player to have won all four Grand Slam singles titles.
Early life and background
Maria Sharapova was born on April 19, 1987, in Nyagan, Russia. Her parents, Yuri and Yelena, are from Gomel, Belarus. Concerned about their daughter’s health, they decided to move to Siberia when Sharapova was two. It was there that Yuri recognized his daughter’s potential for tennis and enrolled her in a local tennis academy. At age six, Sharapova made the long journey to Moscow to compete in a children’s tournament. She caught the attention of Martina Navratilova, who arranged for her to train at Nick Bollettieri’s famed tennis academy in Bradenton, Florida.
Professional career
Sharapova has been ranked world No. 1 in singles by the WTA on five separate occasions, for a total of 21 weeks. She is one of ten women, and the only Russian, to hold the career Grand Slam. She is also an Olympic medalist, having won silver in women’s singles at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Sharapova became the world’s highest-paid female athlete in 2015, with earnings of US$29.7 million, mostly from endorsements. She was suspended from tennis for 15 months (from 2016 to 2017) due to doping violations.
Major accomplishments
Maria Sharapova has accomplished a lot in her tennis career. She has won five Grand Slam titles, including the Wimbledon singles twice. She has also won the year-end WTA Tour Championships two times. In addition, she has won an Olympic silver medal and was ranked world No. 1 in singles by the WTA on five separate occasions.
Naomi Osaka
Naomi Osaka is a Japanese professional tennis player. She is the reigning champion of two Grand Slam singles titles and is currently ranked no. 3 in the world by the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA). She has been described as one of the most promising talents in tennis.
Early life and background
Naomi Osaka was born in Osaka, Japan, on October 16, 1997, to a Japanese mother and a Haitian father. She moved to the United States at age three. Her father, Leonard Maxime Francis, played tennis for Haiti in the Davis Cup and is now her coach. Growing up in New York, she began playing tennis at age four and started practicing daily at age seven. When she was 12 years old, she relocated with her family to Lauderhill, Florida, in order to be closer to the tennis academy where her older sister Mari trains.
In 2012 and 2013, Naomi played junior tournaments on the ITF Junior Circuit. In September 2013, she won her first major title at the USTA Girls’ 18s National Championships in San Diego. The following month, she made her WTA debut at the Osaka Mayor’s Cup.
Professional career
In September 2018, Osaka reached her first WTA final at the 2018 Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo, which she lost to Anastasija Sevastova. At the 2018 China Open, Osaka captured her first WTA title, defeating Aryna Sabalenka in the final.
In January 2019, Osaka won her second consecutive Grand Slam title at the 2019 Australian Open, defeating Petra Kvitová in the final. This made her the first Asian player to ever hold two Grand Slam singles titles. Four weeks later, Osaka defended her title at the 2019 Qatar Open, defeating Aliaksandra Sasnovich in the final.
Major accomplishments
In 2018, Osaka became the first Japanese player to win a Grand Slam singles tournament, when she defeated Serena Williams in the 2018 US Open final. She followed this up by defeating Petra Kvitova in the 2019 Australian Open final, winning back-to-back Major singles titles for the first time in her career. With these victories, Osaka also rose to become world No. 1 in the WTA rankings on January 28, 2019, at the age of 20 years and 22 days, only the second Asian player after Li Na to achieve this milestone. She became the first player from Asia to hold two Major singles titles simultaneously.
In September 2020, Osaka won her third Major singles title at the 2020 US Open. With this victory, she became the second female player after Serena Williams to win three Major singles titles before turning 23 years old.
Simona Halep
Simona Halep is a professional tennis player from Romania. She is currently ranked number one in the world by the Women’s Tennis Association. She has won numerous Grand Slam titles, including Wimbledon and the French Open. She is considered to be one of the best tennis players in the world.
Early life and background
Simona Halep was born on September 27, 1991, in Constanța, Romania. Her parents, Stere and Tania Halep, are from Târgu Mureș in Transylvania. She has one older brother named Nicolae who supports her tennis career. At the age of four, she started playing tennis and was soon coached by Andrei Mlendea. He would train her three to four hours a day. Halep considers him to be her “first real coach”.
Professional career
Simona Halep began her professional tennis career in 2006, when she was just fifteen years old. Since then, she has won six WTA singles titles and one WTA doubles title. She has also reached the semifinals of the French Open and the Wimbledon Championships, and the finals of the US Open. In 2013, she was ranked as the world’s No. 2 singles player by the Women’s Tennis Association.
Major accomplishments
Simona Halep is a Romanian professional tennis player. She is the current world No. 1 in the WTA singles rankings, having first achieved the ranking on October 9, 2017. She has won 18 WTA singles titles, including two Grand Slam singles titles at the 2018 French Open and 2019 Wimbledon Championships.
Petra Kvitova
Petra Kvitova is a Czech professional tennis player. Ranked world No. 2 by the Women’s Tennis Association, she has won six Grand Slam titles, most notably the Wimbledon championships in 2011 and 2014. She has also won the WTA Finals in 2020.
Early life and background
Petra Kvitova was born on March 8, 1990, in Bilovec, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic), to Jiri Kvitova and Petra Kvitova Sr. She has a younger brother, Michal. Petra’s father worked as a schoolteacher and then as a tennis coach, while her mother was a professional tennis player and later ran a tennis club. As a child, Petra showed an early interest in tennis and began playing at age four. When she was six years old, her parents divorced, and Petra and her brother were raised by their mother.
Petra began receiving professional coaching at age seven from David Kotyza, who would later become her manager. She played her first professional tournament when she was 14 years old. In 2006, she won the prestigious Orange Bowl junior tournament.
Professional career
Kvitova turned professional in 2006, but did not play a full season on the WTA Tour until 2008. She finished her first year ranked world No. 54, winning two titles on the ITF Circuit. In 2009, Kvitova improved her ranking to No. 32 by winning her first WTA Tour title at the Moorilla Hobart International and reaching her first Grand Slam semifinal at Wimbledon. She also reached the semifinals of the Mutua Madrileña Madrid Open, where she defeated then-world No. 1 Dinara Safina en route. Kvitova’s breakthrough year on tour came in 2011, when she won six singles titles, including her first two Premier Mandatory tournaments at the Madrid Open and China Open. She also reached her second Grand Slam semifinal at Wimbledon and finished the year ranked a career-high No. 4 in the world.
Major accomplishments
Petra Kvitova has had an impressive tennis career thus far, becoming a two-time Wimbledon champion and a two-time Olympic medalist. She has also been ranked as high as number two in the world by the WTA.
