Justine Henin not only took apart Svetlana Kuznetsova in the U.S. Open, she completed the rare double over Venus and Serena Williams.
No player from this generation is going to threaten the top six players of the Open era. But it should be interesting which of the three will end up as the best of their time.
Serena has the lead right now, but Venus appears to be more motivated, and Henin is at the top of her game. The three players won all four majors this year. Even with the U.S. Open win, Henin remained third among the three. Martina Hingis is between Serena and the other two, but she doesn't appear to have the game anymore to play at the very highest level.
The player who made the largest leap was Kuznetsova. Her second place finish allowed her to jump three places.
Here are the 32 greatest women in the Open era. Active players are in bold:
Rank, Player, Country, Years, Points
1. Martina Navratilova, Czechoslovakia, 1974-2006, 1308.50
2. Steffi Graf, Germany, 1987-1999, 1215.50
3. Chris Evert-Lloyd, United States, 1973-1988, 953.50
4. Monica Seles, Yugoslavia, 1990-1998, 684.00
5. Margaret Smith-Court, Australia, 1968-1975, 675.00
6. Billie Jean King, United States, 1968-1979, 650.50
7. Evonne Goolagong-Cawley, Australia, 1971-1980, 579.50
8. Serena Williams, United States, 1999-2007, 503.00
9. Aranxta Sanchez-Vicario, Spain, 1989-1998, 468.50
10. Martina Hingis, Switzerland, 1996-2006, 449.00
11. Venus Williams, United States, 1997-2007, 440.00
12. Justine Henin, Belgium, 2001-2007, 429.00
13. Hana Mandlikova, Czechoslovakia, 1980-1987, 334.00
14. Lindsay Davenport, United States, 1998-2005, 312.00
15. Virginia Wade, England, 1968-1977, 197.00
16. Mary Pierce, France, 1994-2005, 194.00
17. Tracy Austin, United States, 1979-1981, 186.50
18. Jennifer Capriati, United States, 2001-2002, 184.00
19. Amelie Mauresmo, France, 1999-2006, 170.00
20. Gabriela Sabatini, Argentina, 1988-1991, 165.00
21. Maria Sharapova, Russia, 2004-2007, 162.00
22. Kim Clijsters, Belgium, 2001-2005, 151.00
23. Jana Novotna, Czechoslovakia, 1991-1998, 150.00
24. Ann Haydon-Jones, England, 1968-1969, 141.00
25. Conchita Martinez, Spain, 1994-2000, 140.00
26. Virginia Ruzici, Romania, 1978-1980, 107.50
27. Kerry Melville-Reid, Australia, 1970-1977, 103.00
28. Svetlana Kuznetsova, Russia, 2004-2007, 101.50
29. Mimi Jausovec, Yugoslavia, 1977-1983, 97.00
30. Helena Sukova, Czechoslovakia, 1984-1993, 94.50
31. Christine O'Neill, Australia, 1978, 85.00
32. Wendy Turnbill, United States, 1977-1980, 80.00
1 comment:
I still believe in Venus and Serena. If they get healthy and commit themselves to the game, they can be the 2 best players in the world. But I don't think Henin is far behind. She's a wonderful talent and a true professional. So it would not surprise me to see her finish her career ranked above either Williams who don't seem to have the tunnel vision of a Graf, Evert, Martina, etc.
In your overall rankings, it looks like you have a system. And I doubt my personal opinions would differ much from the results of your system. But I would rank V. Williams, Henin, and Mandlikova above Sanchez and Hingis, whose places in the game are by the grace of absences of great players. Plug Mandlikova into their time in history or if simply Evert or Martina had retired early, her grand slam titles totals take a big step up. This would be particularly true if Evert had retired earlier. As it is, Mandlikova won the same number of slams and on a greater variety of sites and surfaces than Sanchez did with more competition than Sanchez faced. But that's just my opinion. :-)
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