Favourite female players

Since there are very few WTA articles on this board I thought I would write one.



The question is, who are your favourite all-time female tennis players to watch?

Each person is allowed to pick 5.

Mine in order of preference are:

1) Maria Krilenko
2) Gabriela Sabatini
3) Elena Dimentieva
4) Anna Kournikova
5) Sania Mirza

emancipator

Emancipator, not big WTA fan but have to agree with Maria kirlenko and Gabby, Gabby is more beautiful today than she was when she was playing. Got to put Ana Ivanovic up there as well. Jelena is great plays a nice brand of tennis always with a smile on her face. In one tournament I remember Novak won the tourney and Sabatini was one of the presenters, and she looked gorgeous. Novak had the crowd laughing when he hugged her as she presented the trophy and he made a big show of hugging her and maybe making it a bit more familiar than he should have. he was definetly jokingly flirting with her and both she and the crowd seemed to be having a good time with it.

1. Serena Williams
2. Lindsay Davenport
3. Aranxta Sanchez Viccario
4. Maria Sharapova
5. Jennifer Capriati

Socal,

Nice post. I think you may be right about Ana Iv.

BigSal - I think Lindsey is more fun to watch in the studio than on the court. She seems to have blossomed since putting away the racket.

Serena is quite fun to watch in an intriguing sort of way. Maria is one i'd definitely watch (with the sound muted of course)

Aranxta - not in a million sundays

Bit of a *wish list* there isn't it emacipator?

This is a TENNIS FORUM - NOT a BEAUTY CONTEST

So yummy

Do you like watching Radek Stepanek?

Yummy,

I think you have misinterpreted by intentions.

Where does my post indicate that the criteria is beauty?

Perhaps some Freudian/subliminal transference on your part?

Big Sal, never been a big fan of the williams sisters they have all the talent in the world especially serena but seem indifferent to committing themselves to actually dominating the tour like they should. It is scary to think how good serena would actually be if she cared about being a professional tennis player first and foremost. Another reason I don't like the women's tour, the best players don't care about the tour, why should I.

Sania Mirza --- it is painful to watch her.

My favourite are;

a. Henin - amazing backhand
b. Hantuchova - solid ground stroke. She should have done better with those skills
c. Dokic - lovely stroke
d. Schiavone - different and amazing to watch her play variety and big personality
e. Williams sister - although I find their game very aggressive they are very hard working people and deserved the title.

I don't know superchog, the williams sisters don't seem like hardworkers to me, they hardly even show up for the tour.

socal1976 wrote:Big Sal, never been a big fan of the williams sisters they have all the talent in the world especially serena but seem indifferent to committing themselves to actually dominating the tour like they should. It is scary to think how good serena would actually be if she cared about being a professional tennis player first and foremost. Another reason I don't like the women's tour, the best players don't care about the tour, why should I.

Are you including Kim Clijsters as not caring about the tour. Not many players can take a few years off to start a family and come back and win US open in their 2nd tournament back beating both Williams sisters along the way.

1) Steffi Graf. Possibly my fave tennis player of all time, men and women (started watching in 95 or so). Just a beautiful game to watch, she had everything.
2) Justin Henin. Lovely backhand, had something a bit different.
3) Amelie Mauresmo. Again, different to today's one-dimensional ball-bashers (mostly). A very attacking game, and a fine volleyer.
4) Ana Ivanovic. OK so I'm male, so sue me
5) Elena Dementieva. Because she managed to achieve so much without a serve.

Yes, braveheart, I include Clisters, Henin, the williams sisters and Hingis. These are all players who retire and comeback whenever they feel like playing. I group all of them along with the williams sisters as WTA players who don't really care about the tour. Graf would kick all their a****, and so would martina in their day, those two were really dedicated.

socal1976 wrote:Yes, braveheart, I include Clisters, Henin, the williams sisters and Hingis. These are all players who retire and comeback whenever they feel like playing. I group all of them along with the williams sisters as WTA players who don't really care about the tour. Graf would kick all their a****, and so would martina in their day, those two were really dedicated.

Fair enough point about Henin but i'd have to disagree with you about Clijsters seeing as she wanted to start a family. Maybe she should have said she was taking a year or two off rather than say she was retiring. As for the Williams sisters have they said anything about retiring. I agree they shouldn't be allowed to just play in Grand Slams but have to play a certain number of WTA events every year.
Thing is though if you had a choice who would you prefer watching, the Williams sisters, Clijsters, Henin, Hingis etc or players like Wozniaki or previously Jankovic who played alot of tour events to enable them to become world number 1 but never managed to win a Grand Slam.

emancipator wrote:Yummy,

I think you have misinterpreted by intentions.

Where does my post indicate that the criteria is beauty?

Perhaps some Freudian/subliminal transference on your part?

Oooops (blush)
Sorry = Perhaps I did

Steffi Graf
Martina Hingis
Mary Pierce
Ana Checkvadze
Jelena Dokic

braveheart, to me that is one of the principal reasons I don't like the womann's tour. The best players don't care to turn up and play and you have a pseudo #1 like Wozniacki. I mean if the best players don't care to show up, why should the fans watch? In general I am not a fan of women's tennis and in the last few years have become less and less a fan of women's tennis. As for the williams' sisters their game is up and down they hit so many errors, I have never been a big fan. I have to hand to sharapova at least she cares enough to compete consistently for the most part and play a somewhat full schedule.

socal1976 wrote:Big Sal, never been a big fan of the williams sisters they have all the talent in the world especially serena but seem indifferent to committing themselves to actually dominating the tour like they should. It is scary to think how good serena would actually be if she cared about being a professional tennis player first and foremost. Another reason I don't like the women's tour, the best players don't care about the tour, why should I.

Many of the critiscims of the current crop on the 'tour' are that none of them are good enough to win a slam and that without the Williams sisters, Clijsters & Henin, it's pretty much anyones competition.

Personally I'd much rather see the people with talent winning the major tournaments, rather than the 'grafters' who play so many tournaments to get a higher ranking. None of these players have really come close to winning a slam in the last while. Hard to criticse Serenas game when she's been on the tour for so long, being world no1 for a long part of that part and winning as many slams as she has. Why not conncentrate on the 'biggies'? You think Wozniacki, Jankovic or safina would trade their world no1 or a few of their tour titles for a Slam?? You bet they would.

for me its the following:

1 - Martina Navratilova
2 - Steffi Graff
3 - Martina Hingis
4 - Chris Evert
5 - Justine Henin

I also liked Seles and Sharapova but was always turned off my their screaming. I have never enjoyed watchin Serena Williams, great tennis player but i just cant bring myself to appreciate her, Venus on the other hand is great to watch.

Bigsal, I agree it is better to win grandslams than to win small tournaments or get higher rankings. However the lack of interest of the legends of the woman's tour takes away from the tour. Serena in my mind for all that she has achieved is an underachiever. If she dedicated herself to the sport she would unquestionably surpass every record in the history of woman's tennis. 20-25 slams easy, but instead she has branched out to do other things, which is fine she can do whatever she likes. But as a tennis fan, why should I take the WTA tour seriously when the top players themselves don't take it seriously.

socal1976 wrote:Bigsal, I agree it is better to win grandslams than to win small tournaments or get higher rankings. However the lack of interest of the legends of the woman's tour takes away from the tour. Serena in my mind for all that she has achieved is an underachiever. If she dedicated herself to the sport she would unquestionably surpass every record in the history of woman's tennis. 20-25 slams easy, but instead she has branched out to do other things, which is fine she can do whatever she likes. But as a tennis fan, why should I take the WTA tour seriously when the top players themselves don't take it seriously.

I can see your point, personally I haven't watched much womens tennis in the last couple of years, I used to watch it all the time when it was Hingis, Davenport, Henin, Capriati & the Williams sisters. Anyone of them could beat each other, and the 'drama' aspect was always good for the game then. Lately tho (and this is where our points kind of meet) I havent paid it much attention. I watched alot of it during the FO, but that was down to the fact Sharapova was playing well and could have potentially completed her Career slam. The reason I havent watched alot lately? No Serena or Venus. So i get your point that because they arent on the tour all the time, why should we bother, but at the same time, Serena has been injured since wimbledon last year, and from the press that she's done prior to Eastbourne, I get a sense that she really, really wants to win. And we know what happened the last time she came back from a long lay off, she went and won the AO.

Well, I hope she decides to rededicate herself to the sport, it is really a shame that a talent of her level should kind of give short shriff to her abilities and all the work she put into getting were she his. She isn't going to be able to play forever, and i think that maybe later in life she will regret not having gotten the most out of her tennis career. I hope she heals up and plays well. But for these reasons I just have never been a big williams sisters fan.

Just how long has / will be women's tennis be in a state of transition? It seems to have been about 3 or 4 years already and there's only slight signs of the cream of the younger players rising to the top.

It is a rather sad state of affairs that two of the dominant players (Venus and Serena) have been allowed to be part time pros for so long, and that this has rather screwed the rankings and led to a number of good but not great players getting to the top (I won't be too critical of Safina, as if she'd stayed healthy I think she could have started to exert some dominance, but the others have got there through graft and consistency rather than great ability). It's a sad come-down from the eras of Evert - Navratilova and from Graf - Seles.

As for the original question, I like the women players to try and mix there game up rather than being the one-dimensional baseliners that dominate, so would have to include:
Schiavone
Hantuchova
Henin
Mauresmo
Hingis

I also had a soft spot for Dementieva - if only she'd ever had a serve, the rest of her game was a match for anyone.

One thing I hate though is the shrieking that goes on - it is clearly nothing to do with the effort of making the shot and is simply gamesmanship to try and distract an opponent.

Did though lead to a funny joke about Monica Seles faking her first serve

The future looks good for women tennis (I think). The following players are looking good to me;
Caroline Garcia
Sabine Lisicki
Petra Kvitova
Victoria Azarenka
yanina wickmayer

And the best I think is Sabine Lisicki - she needs to work on consistency otherwise has amazing stroke.

What about the young Bulgarian Tsvetnana Pironkova. Not only has she got excellent potential and talent for tennis but she is also pleasing on the eye as well.

gboycottnut wrote:What about the young Bulgarian Tsvetnana Pironkova. Not only has she got excellent potential and talent for tennis but she is also pleasing on the eye as well.

Also now a break up on Serena in eastbourne

BigSal wrote:

gboycottnut wrote:What about the young Bulgarian Tsvetnana Pironkova. Not only has she got excellent potential and talent for tennis but she is also pleasing on the eye as well.

Also now a break up on Serena in eastbourne

Is this match live on TV currently?

On Eurosport GB

legendkillar wrote:On Eurosport GB

Great that there is live tennis available to watch between the end of yesterday's Aegeon Men's Championship and the start of Wimbledon next week! Hopefully Pironkova can go all the way this week to the Final and win it. I don't see why men players like Tsonga and Hewitt are allowed to play in this same tournament as they have already had a pre-Wimbledon grasscourt tournament last week at Queen's.

I was reading through Serena's stats on WIKI earlier and was actually quite amazed by the number of majors she's had to miss, particularly in the early 00's through injury. Does anyone have a full list of how many she's missed? I didnt have time to write it all down.

With her missing the USO, AO & FO in the last 12 months, does anyone else think that she might have added to her GS tally? Personally I think she would have been in with a damn good shout at both AO & FO this year.

BigSal,

Serena has certainly missed a lot of opportunities through injury.

I don't necessarily agree with Socal that Serena and venus are not as dedicated as they should be. Perhaps they don't give 100% for every tour event but they certainly do try to be fit for all the slams. I believe injury is the main reason that Serena does not have an even better record in the slams.

Steffi, likewise missed a lot of slams through injury, particularly in the period from '96-'99. I think she may easily have reached 25 slams if it were not for those missed opportunities.

I liked the grit that Steffi brought to the game - when people talk of a GOAT in tennis, she's actually probably the nearest thing there is.

I mean...377 weeks at no.1 - 377! (that's over 7 years worth)
And all the other amazing records she holds.

lydian wrote:I liked the grit that Steffi brought to the game - when people talk of a GOAT in tennis, she's actually probably the nearest thing there is.

I mean...377 weeks at no.1 - 377! (that's over 7 years worth)
And all the other amazing records she holds.

Probably Martina Navratilova is the nearest thing in the women's game to a GOAT player as she won what 9 singles titles at Wimbledon and even managed to reach a singles final in 1994 when she was well past her playing prime. Also she had serious competition during her prime years of the 1980's, with other great players like Chris Evert and Hana Mandlikova up to the emergence of Graf in 1986.

Lydian
But as with most GOAT contenders, you can point to flaws even in Graf's awesome record - the biggest being that she was not able to get the better of Seles in the grand slams until Seles's stabbing.

Don't get me wrong, I was a much (MUCH) bigger fan of Graf than of Seles (partly because MS looked like a chipmunk and partly her game was not in the slightest pleasing on the eye), but the H2H for the years that Seles was at her best, she was clearly superior to Steffi.

Sorry Dummy,

I think you may be mistaken. Seles NEVER had a positive H2H against Graf at any point in her career.

She was however winning a lot of slams in the early '90's prior to the stabbing. However, what is often forgotten, is that Graf at the time was in an emotional mess, with her father being pursued by the police and courts in Germany over tax evasion, as well as other personal problems.

The truth is that we wil never know how much the Seles incident affected the overall outcome in their respective careers, hence we can only go by the record,

Fair point DH

Surely Martina Navratilova must be the GOAT female player as she had serious competition from 2 great players during her prime years of the 1980's. First it was the great Chris Evert who herself was still in her own playing prime up until 1986. Then it was the turn of Graf who was then starting to enter her prime who seriously challenged Navratilova at the top of the women's game once Evert's own game had began to decline from 1986 onwards. In contrast, during Graf's decade or so of dominance from around 1988 onwards, she only had serious competition from one other great player playing at her prime and that was Seles during the period from the start of the 1990's up until the middle of the 1990's when Seles herself was nowhere near her playing best she showed prior to her stabbing in 1993, whilst other potential greats like Hingis, Davenport and Venus Williams only briefly threatened to challenge Graf at the top of the women's game near the end of Graf's decade of dominance.

Tsvetnana Pironkova has an unusual backhand - she manages to find this crosscourt angle which normally only single handed backhand players can manage. She needs to work on the physical aspect of her body. She is weak and saw her many times gasping after long rally. Her forehand reminds me of dementieva's serve - just a push without anything on it.

Mad for Chelsea wrote:1) Steffi Graf. Possibly my fave tennis player of all time, men and women (started watching in 95 or so). Just a beautiful game to watch, she had everything.

I always thought her game lacked a top spin BH !

lydian wrote:I liked the grit that Steffi brought to the game - when people talk of a GOAT in tennis, she's actually probably the nearest thing there is.

I mean...377 weeks at no.1 - 377! (that's over 7 years worth)
And all the other amazing records she holds.

She does play beautiful tennis and I love her slice back hand. Whenever I think of her in terms of GOAT I can't stop thinking of Seles. If only that horrible thing didn't happen to her - and hope it will never happen to anyone.

My fav 5 to watch were:-

1:- Justine Henin - A true all court player, comfortable at the net or in long baseline rallies perhaps the only girl I'd pay my own money to see play.

2:- Monica Seles - The prototype for the Williams sisters and the modern day game. She just seemed to thrash everything from the baseline with no compromising.

3:- Martina Navratilova - Her allout net attack game just seemed to overwealm most players.

4:- Kim Clijsters - Seemed to get better with age, her game now matches up to the Williams sisters, wheras I don't think it did in her earlier career.

5:- Elena Dementieva - I liked watching her but she's probably the greatest under achiever in the womens game. Even though she won the Olympics, I feel she could have done better if she'd sorted that serve out and maybe got rid of mum as her coach.

superochog wrote:

lydian wrote:I liked the grit that Steffi brought to the game - when people talk of a GOAT in tennis, she's actually probably the nearest thing there is.

I mean...377 weeks at no.1 - 377! (that's over 7 years worth)
And all the other amazing records she holds.

She does play beautiful tennis and I love her slice back hand. Whenever I think of her in terms of GOAT I can't stop thinking of Seles. If only that horrible thing didn't happen to her - and hope it will never happen to anyone.

Seems that history has repeated itself, with Graf's single handed backhand struggling to cope with a southpaw player in Seles who has a double-handed backhand, much like is the case in the men's game in recent times with Lord Federer's single handed backhand struggling at times to deal with the double-handed backhand shots of a certain southpaw Rafa\'s style of tennis Spaniard.

As I said earlier, sabine lisicki is the really one to watch for future titles. She deserved to win today - amazing first serve, and powerful forehand. Na Li played well but today was sabine lisicki's day

My favourites are Vera Zvonareva, Yanina Wickmayer and Caroline Wozniacki.

I remember seeing Lisicki at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia and thinking she's one to look out for, might start following her after todays win.

I posted a one to watch thread a couple of days ago and listed Sabine Lisicki as one of my four to watch for the Wimbledon tournament.

I just feel she has a very good game about her, powerful serve good returning on both forehand and backhand and she has a decent drop shot as proved today. She was bursting onto the scene then unfortunately got injured, but is now back and is gradually building up some good performances, especially at the French where she nearly beat Zvonareva, won Birmingham with a convincing win over Hantuchova who is showing form, now she has beaten Li Na on centre court at Wimbledon.

A star in the making for sure, and superochog I think you commented on my thread and also mentioned her talents. Definitely a one to watch and players such as Wozniacki, Ivanovic, Jankovic who have been to the top I feel Lisicki and some others have much stronger games.

Petkovic is another one who I really like the look of, a very dangerous player who is capable of mixing her shots up. My top five favourites to watch at the minute are.

1.Kvitova
2.Lisicki
3.Schiavone
4.Petkovic
5.Stosur

1. Monica Seles
2. Serena Williams
3. Venus Williams
4. Martina Navratilova
5. Maria Sharapova

I watch yanina wickmayer as well - she is good.

Just looking through this thread again. Can't believe no has mentioned Sorana Cirstea.