TV announcer Mary Carillo said a curious thing in this morning's Serena-Venus Wimbledon final.
She said she thought both would be all-time greats by now.
I understand her point. She thought both Serena and Venus Williams would have collected more than the 15 major titles they have between them.
Their careers have been derailed a few times by outside interests and injuries.
Still, each of them have either made a Grand Slam final or won a Grand Slam doubles title in 10 different years since 1998. Only Serena had a Navratilova or Graf type run where she won everything in sight.
In my point system, thanks to Venus' win this morning, now both of them are among the 10 greatest womens players in the open era. And Venus needs just one more title to move up to No. 9. Just think where Venus would be if Serena had not taken up tennis. She is now just 2-5 against Serena in Grand Slam finals and 5-1 against everyone else.
People for years have been writing the two off and they keep coming back. I still see 10 individual titles as possibilities for both.
Here's my updated list of the 32 greatest women's tennis players:
Rank, Player, Country, Years, Points
1. Martina Navratilova, Czechoslovakia, 1974-2006, 165.63
2. Steffi Graf, Germany, 1985-1999, 154.13
3. Chris Evert-Lloyd, United States, 1971-1989, 113.40
4. Margaret Smith-Court, Australia, 1968-1975, 96.75
5. Monica Seles, Yugoslavia, 1989-2002, 92.85
6. Billie Jean King, United States, 1968-1983, 88.14
7. Evonne Goolagong-Cawley, Australia, 1971-1980, 80.35
8. Serena Williams, United States, 1998-2008, 70.93
9. Martina Hingis, Switzerland, 1996-2006, 65.47
10. Venus Williams, United States, 1997-2008, 63.47
11. Aranxta Sanchez-Vicario, Spain, 1989-2000, 63.14
12. Justine Henin, Belgium, 2001-2007, 62.14
13. Hana Mandlikova, Czechoslovakia, 1980-1987, 47.65
14. Lindsay Davenport, United States, 1996-2005, 47.40
15. Maria Sharapova, Russia, 2004-2007, 31.97
16. Jennifer Capriati, United States, 2001-2002, 29.93
17. Virginia Wade, England, 1968-1977, 28.92
18. Tracy Austin, United States, 1979-1981, 28.55
19. Mary Pierce, France, 1994-2005, 27.15
20. Gabriela Sabatini, Argentina, 1988-1991, 27.03
21. Amelie Mauresmo, France, 1999-2006, 25.00
22. Kim Clijsters, Belgium, 2001-2005, 23.76
23. Conchita Martinez, Spain, 1994-2000, 22.69
24. Jana Novotna, Czechoslovakia, 1991-1998, 21.55
25. Ann Haydon-Jones, England, 1968-1969, 20.17
26. Kerry Melville-Reid, Australia, 1970-1977, 15.61
27. Virginia Ruzici, Romania, 1978-1980, 15.40
28. Svetlana Kuznetsova, Russia, 2004-2007, 15.22
29. Ana Ivanovic, Serbia, 2007-2008, 14.76
30. Helena Sukova, Czechoslovakia, 1984-1993, 14.74
31. Mimi Jausovec, Yugoslavia, 1977-1983, 14.41
32. Mary-Joe Fernandez, United States, 1989-1997, 13.33
1 comment:
I noticed the comment too ... but that is par for the course for her. She's now defending her criticism of their schedule in the light of burnout on the part of other champions than the Williams. But it may take a champion to appreciate one.
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