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tennis.com's 25 "Greatest" Players of the Open Era (21 -25 )
21
Amelie Mauresmo
Years played: 1993–2009
Titles: 25
Major titles: 2 (2006 Australian Open; 2006 Wimbledon)
Amelie Mauresmo’s most lasting achievements didn’t happen until 2006, but she can be seen as one of the last champions of the 20th century. Her one-handed backhand and smooth net-rushing attack made her a throwback, and a favorite of traditionalist fans.
Yet in other ways, Mauresmo was a progressive figure. In the midst of her first significant result, her run to the 1999 Australian Open final at age 19, the Frenchwoman announced that she was gay, and chalked up her success at that event to the fact that she had come to terms with her sexuality. When her opponent in the final, Martina Hingis, called her “half a man,” Mauresmo found herself at the center of an unwelcome media storm. While Mauresmo would lose to Hingis in that final, she would beat her later that year, and in 2006 would win her first major title in Melbourne.
Mauresmo was initially inspired to pick up a racquet after watching—what else?—Yannick Noah win the 1983 French Open, and she kept his attacking style alive in her own game. Mauresmo mixed strength and delicacy, power and touch; she could come over her one-hander with pace, or make it bite with slice when she followed it to net.
Her most notable weakness wasn’t in her strokes; it was in her nerves. At the French Open, she struggled to live up to the home fans’ pressure, and failed to make it past the quarterfinals even once in 15 tries. Her game was better suited to grass, but at Wimbledon she lost close semifinal matches to Serena Williams and Lindsay Davenport despite holding leads in both. But just when Mauresmo was on the verge of being dubbed the best player never to win a major, she won two in 2016. The first came when Justine Henin retired in their Australian Open final; the second came in much finer style, with a three-set win over Henin.
Mauresmo herself, like her game, seemed to fade out just as she entered the spotlight. After conquering her nerves, winning two majors, and reaching No. 1 in 2006, she never made it past the fourth round at a major again. But after retiring in 2009, she would show her progressive side once more when she returned to help Andy Murray kick his stalled career back into gear in 2015. Mauresmo’s old-fashioned game and philosophy transcended not just eras, but genders, too.
Defining Moment: In the 2006 Wimbledon final, Mauresmo came back from a set down to beat Henin 6-4 in the third. For the Frenchwoman, it was a triumph over her opponent as well as her own nerves, which had overwhelmed her on Center Court in the past. For fans, the match felt like a requiem for an all-court style that was vanishing even as it was being beautifully performed.
*****
22
Victoria Azarenka
Years played: 2003–
Titles: 20
Major titles: 2 (2012, 2013 Australian Open)
When Victoria Azarenka took over the No. 1 ranking for the first time in early 2012, it looked as if women’s tennis had finally found a successor to Serena Williams.
The 24-year-old Belarusian-turned-Californian looked and acted the part. She was six-feet tall and as powerfully athletic as any player on tour. She was also as fiercely competitive and emotional as anyone this side of Serena. Vika—frowning, striding, clenching her fists, clashing with umpires, berating herself—has always been at her best when she’s about to boil over.
Besides looking and acting the part of a No. 1, Azarenka appeared prepared to play the role as well. Like Novak Djokovic, who rose to prominence around the same time, she was the foremost exemplar of the contemporary game. Her speed and her return, rather than her serve, were her most important weapons. She blended offense and defense until there was little difference between the two. Most important, like Djokovic, she expected to beat everyone she played, including her legendary opponents. While Vika never surpassed Serena, she challenged her in a way that no other woman of her generation has.
Yet six years after winning her first Grand Slam title, Azarenka has won just one more. Ranked No. 1 in 2012, she began 2018 at No. 205. She has been forced to end three of her seasons early for different, equally unfortunate reasons—injury, pregnancy, and, in 2017, a custody battle with the father of her son Leo. At 28, there’s still time for her to reclaim her past glory—no one has come along since who can match her athleticism and competitive fire. As it stands now, though, Vika is the 22nd-best women’s player of the Open era, but so far she’s an even bigger what-if.
Defining Moment: Azarenka’s career low and career high came within 48 hours of each other at the 2013 Australian Open. In her semifinal win, she called a trainer to the court and was granted a long medical timeout just before her opponent, Sloane Stephens, was about to serve to stay in the match. After breaking the American to win, Azarenka faced jeers from the crowd and harsh questions from the press. Two difficult days later, though, Vika silenced her critics with a three-set win over Li Na for her second major title.
*****
23
Angelique Kerber
Years played: 2003–
Titles: 11
Major titles: 2 (2016 Australian Open, 2016 US Open)
Can a single point turn a career, and tennis history, upside down? Ask Angelique Kerber. In 2016, a few days shy of her 28th birthday, the German arrived at the Australian Open as the seventh seed. It had been 18 months since she had reached the second week at a major—the previous year, she had failed to get out of the third round at any of them. When Kerber fell behind early and faced a match point in her opening round to Misaki Doi, it looked as if that streak of futility would continue. Few were surprised.
Just as few were surprised when Kerber saved that match point and came back to win. It was what came afterward—over the next two weeks in Melbourne and the next nine months everywhere else—that was a shock. Playing with nothing to lose after her great escape, Kerber went on to beat Victoria Azarenka and Serena Williams for her first Grand Slam title. She followed that up by reaching the Wimbledon final, winning a silver medal for Germany at the Rio Olympics, winning the US Open, and finishing the year No. 1.
Kerber’s sudden ascent was a surprise, and so was the way she made it happen. In recent years, the majors on the women’s side have been the property of the tour’s power hitters; it helps to be able to blast past your nerves. But Kerber can’t do that; she’s a defensive-minded retriever who grinds her opponents down and wins with scrappy, scrambling athleticism and a kitchen-sink approach to shotmaking. But she began 2016 determined to inject some offense into her game, and it paid off. Her lefty serve was more effective, and her point-changing down-the-line forehand was the shot of the year.
Unfortunately for Kerber, her 2017 was just as shocking as her 2016. She fell from No. 1 to 21 and failed to reach the quarterfinals at any major. Can she scramble and grind her way back up the mountain again at 30? As Kerber knows better than anyone, a turnaround only takes one point.
Defining Moment: In September 2016, Kerber needed one more win to reach No. 1 for the first time. But she was trying to get it in a tough place, the US Open final, against a tough opponent, Karolina Pliskova. The two were locked in a tight third set when Kerber ended a thrilling rally with her favorite shot, a down-the-line forehand that hooked in for a winner, and sent her soaring to the title and the top of the rankings.
*****
24
Caroline Wozniacki
Years played: 2007–
Titles: 29
Major titles: 1 (2018 Australian Open)
“Adding a Grand Slam to my CV is what caps it off,” a grinning Wozniacki said after she won the 2018 Australian Open. “And really, I think, shows my career as a whole.”
Wozniacki isn’t last on our list, but she was a last-minute entry. While her accomplishments before this season had been impressive—none more so than the 67 weeks she spent at No. 1 in 2010 and 2011, and her 587 wins—the fact that she hadn’t won a major title was enough to keep her out of the running. But as Wozniacki herself says, now that she has torn the Grand Slam monkey off her back in Melbourne, it’s easier to appreciate just how good she has been since joining the tour as a 16-year-old in 2007. It’s also possible to imagine, now that she’s No. 1 in the world again, how good this sneaky-young 27-year-old could still become.
At first glance, Wozniacki doesn’t appear to do much more than hit the ball over the net and hope that her opponents get nervous and miss—and she has won her share of matches that way. But she’s more than just a wallboard. She’s fast, agile and athletic; few players track more balls down. She’s an underrated tactician; she spreads the court and moves the ball around, while rarely taking any unnecessary risks or beating herself. Most important, she’s a natural competitor who never throws in the towel mentally; if you’re going to beat her, you’re going to have to keep doing it until the final point is over. It’s fitting that on her way to winning her maiden major, Wozniacki would come back from 1-5 down in the third set, and save two points, in the second round.
Wozniacki contemplated retirement in 2016. Now she’s shown what can happen when you never say die.
Defining Moment: Wozniacki trailed Simona Halep 3-4 in the third set of the Australian Open final, and she looked tired. But with her best chance at a Slam in danger of slipping away, she found the corners with her ground strokes, and stole it away with the last three games.
*****
25
Li Na
Years played: 2000–2012
Titles: 9
Major titles: 2 (2011 French Open, 2014 Australian Open)
When it comes to sheer numbers, Li may have been the most popular player in tennis history. Each time China’s first top-level tennis star competed in a big Grand Slam match, she was watched by more than a hundred million people across her home country. By the time her career was over, 15 million of them were hitting the courts regularly. There are players that have helped “grow the game,” and then there’s Li—she took the game to another world entirely.
While her nationality made her a pioneer, as a player Li was very much of her generation. An Andre Agassi fan growing up, she was a power-baseliner with a two-handed backhand, and a late bloomer. The talent was always there, in her natural service motion, her heavy topspin forehand and especially her roundhouse two-handed backhand. Yet over the course of her first 10 years on tour, she reached just one Grand Slam quarterfinal.
The turnaround began in 2008, when she broke away from the Chinese National Team and began to work with her own coaches. The following year, she made the quarterfinals at the US Open; in 2010, she did the same at Wimbledon. Then, in 2011, at the French Open, she became the first Asian to win a Grand Slam singles title, at age 29. In 2014, she added an Australian Open title and reached a career-high No. 2. That same year, she appeared on the cover of Time, which named her one of the world’s 100 most influential people.
Li pulled her final surprise in 2014 when she retired at the peak of her powers and popularity. For Chinese tennis, her absence may one day be filled by a player, or hundreds of players, that she inspired. For the pro tours, her absence can still be felt. She was as well-liked by her fellow players as she was by fans, and as skilled with a quote as she was with a racquet. “Age like paper,” she said with a laugh when she was asked about playing into her 30s.
The message of Li’s career was that it didn’t matter how old you were, or where you came from—you could still conquer a world.
21 - 25
21
Amelie Mauresmo
Years played: 1993–2009
Titles: 25
Major titles: 2 (2006 Australian Open; 2006 Wimbledon)
Amelie Mauresmo’s most lasting achievements didn’t happen until 2006, but she can be seen as one of the last champions of the 20th century. Her one-handed backhand and smooth net-rushing attack made her a throwback, and a favorite of traditionalist fans.
Yet in other ways, Mauresmo was a progressive figure. In the midst of her first significant result, her run to the 1999 Australian Open final at age 19, the Frenchwoman announced that she was gay, and chalked up her success at that event to the fact that she had come to terms with her sexuality. When her opponent in the final, Martina Hingis, called her “half a man,” Mauresmo found herself at the center of an unwelcome media storm. While Mauresmo would lose to Hingis in that final, she would beat her later that year, and in 2006 would win her first major title in Melbourne.
Mauresmo was initially inspired to pick up a racquet after watching—what else?—Yannick Noah win the 1983 French Open, and she kept his attacking style alive in her own game. Mauresmo mixed strength and delicacy, power and touch; she could come over her one-hander with pace, or make it bite with slice when she followed it to net.
Her most notable weakness wasn’t in her strokes; it was in her nerves. At the French Open, she struggled to live up to the home fans’ pressure, and failed to make it past the quarterfinals even once in 15 tries. Her game was better suited to grass, but at Wimbledon she lost close semifinal matches to Serena Williams and Lindsay Davenport despite holding leads in both. But just when Mauresmo was on the verge of being dubbed the best player never to win a major, she won two in 2016. The first came when Justine Henin retired in their Australian Open final; the second came in much finer style, with a three-set win over Henin.
Mauresmo herself, like her game, seemed to fade out just as she entered the spotlight. After conquering her nerves, winning two majors, and reaching No. 1 in 2006, she never made it past the fourth round at a major again. But after retiring in 2009, she would show her progressive side once more when she returned to help Andy Murray kick his stalled career back into gear in 2015. Mauresmo’s old-fashioned game and philosophy transcended not just eras, but genders, too.
Defining Moment: In the 2006 Wimbledon final, Mauresmo came back from a set down to beat Henin 6-4 in the third. For the Frenchwoman, it was a triumph over her opponent as well as her own nerves, which had overwhelmed her on Center Court in the past. For fans, the match felt like a requiem for an all-court style that was vanishing even as it was being beautifully performed.
*****
22
Victoria Azarenka
Years played: 2003–
Titles: 20
Major titles: 2 (2012, 2013 Australian Open)
When Victoria Azarenka took over the No. 1 ranking for the first time in early 2012, it looked as if women’s tennis had finally found a successor to Serena Williams.
The 24-year-old Belarusian-turned-Californian looked and acted the part. She was six-feet tall and as powerfully athletic as any player on tour. She was also as fiercely competitive and emotional as anyone this side of Serena. Vika—frowning, striding, clenching her fists, clashing with umpires, berating herself—has always been at her best when she’s about to boil over.
Besides looking and acting the part of a No. 1, Azarenka appeared prepared to play the role as well. Like Novak Djokovic, who rose to prominence around the same time, she was the foremost exemplar of the contemporary game. Her speed and her return, rather than her serve, were her most important weapons. She blended offense and defense until there was little difference between the two. Most important, like Djokovic, she expected to beat everyone she played, including her legendary opponents. While Vika never surpassed Serena, she challenged her in a way that no other woman of her generation has.
Yet six years after winning her first Grand Slam title, Azarenka has won just one more. Ranked No. 1 in 2012, she began 2018 at No. 205. She has been forced to end three of her seasons early for different, equally unfortunate reasons—injury, pregnancy, and, in 2017, a custody battle with the father of her son Leo. At 28, there’s still time for her to reclaim her past glory—no one has come along since who can match her athleticism and competitive fire. As it stands now, though, Vika is the 22nd-best women’s player of the Open era, but so far she’s an even bigger what-if.
Defining Moment: Azarenka’s career low and career high came within 48 hours of each other at the 2013 Australian Open. In her semifinal win, she called a trainer to the court and was granted a long medical timeout just before her opponent, Sloane Stephens, was about to serve to stay in the match. After breaking the American to win, Azarenka faced jeers from the crowd and harsh questions from the press. Two difficult days later, though, Vika silenced her critics with a three-set win over Li Na for her second major title.
*****
23
Angelique Kerber
Years played: 2003–
Titles: 11
Major titles: 2 (2016 Australian Open, 2016 US Open)
Can a single point turn a career, and tennis history, upside down? Ask Angelique Kerber. In 2016, a few days shy of her 28th birthday, the German arrived at the Australian Open as the seventh seed. It had been 18 months since she had reached the second week at a major—the previous year, she had failed to get out of the third round at any of them. When Kerber fell behind early and faced a match point in her opening round to Misaki Doi, it looked as if that streak of futility would continue. Few were surprised.
Just as few were surprised when Kerber saved that match point and came back to win. It was what came afterward—over the next two weeks in Melbourne and the next nine months everywhere else—that was a shock. Playing with nothing to lose after her great escape, Kerber went on to beat Victoria Azarenka and Serena Williams for her first Grand Slam title. She followed that up by reaching the Wimbledon final, winning a silver medal for Germany at the Rio Olympics, winning the US Open, and finishing the year No. 1.
Kerber’s sudden ascent was a surprise, and so was the way she made it happen. In recent years, the majors on the women’s side have been the property of the tour’s power hitters; it helps to be able to blast past your nerves. But Kerber can’t do that; she’s a defensive-minded retriever who grinds her opponents down and wins with scrappy, scrambling athleticism and a kitchen-sink approach to shotmaking. But she began 2016 determined to inject some offense into her game, and it paid off. Her lefty serve was more effective, and her point-changing down-the-line forehand was the shot of the year.
Unfortunately for Kerber, her 2017 was just as shocking as her 2016. She fell from No. 1 to 21 and failed to reach the quarterfinals at any major. Can she scramble and grind her way back up the mountain again at 30? As Kerber knows better than anyone, a turnaround only takes one point.
Defining Moment: In September 2016, Kerber needed one more win to reach No. 1 for the first time. But she was trying to get it in a tough place, the US Open final, against a tough opponent, Karolina Pliskova. The two were locked in a tight third set when Kerber ended a thrilling rally with her favorite shot, a down-the-line forehand that hooked in for a winner, and sent her soaring to the title and the top of the rankings.
*****
24
Caroline Wozniacki
Years played: 2007–
Titles: 29
Major titles: 1 (2018 Australian Open)
“Adding a Grand Slam to my CV is what caps it off,” a grinning Wozniacki said after she won the 2018 Australian Open. “And really, I think, shows my career as a whole.”
Wozniacki isn’t last on our list, but she was a last-minute entry. While her accomplishments before this season had been impressive—none more so than the 67 weeks she spent at No. 1 in 2010 and 2011, and her 587 wins—the fact that she hadn’t won a major title was enough to keep her out of the running. But as Wozniacki herself says, now that she has torn the Grand Slam monkey off her back in Melbourne, it’s easier to appreciate just how good she has been since joining the tour as a 16-year-old in 2007. It’s also possible to imagine, now that she’s No. 1 in the world again, how good this sneaky-young 27-year-old could still become.
At first glance, Wozniacki doesn’t appear to do much more than hit the ball over the net and hope that her opponents get nervous and miss—and she has won her share of matches that way. But she’s more than just a wallboard. She’s fast, agile and athletic; few players track more balls down. She’s an underrated tactician; she spreads the court and moves the ball around, while rarely taking any unnecessary risks or beating herself. Most important, she’s a natural competitor who never throws in the towel mentally; if you’re going to beat her, you’re going to have to keep doing it until the final point is over. It’s fitting that on her way to winning her maiden major, Wozniacki would come back from 1-5 down in the third set, and save two points, in the second round.
Wozniacki contemplated retirement in 2016. Now she’s shown what can happen when you never say die.
Defining Moment: Wozniacki trailed Simona Halep 3-4 in the third set of the Australian Open final, and she looked tired. But with her best chance at a Slam in danger of slipping away, she found the corners with her ground strokes, and stole it away with the last three games.
*****
25
Li Na
Years played: 2000–2012
Titles: 9
Major titles: 2 (2011 French Open, 2014 Australian Open)
When it comes to sheer numbers, Li may have been the most popular player in tennis history. Each time China’s first top-level tennis star competed in a big Grand Slam match, she was watched by more than a hundred million people across her home country. By the time her career was over, 15 million of them were hitting the courts regularly. There are players that have helped “grow the game,” and then there’s Li—she took the game to another world entirely.
While her nationality made her a pioneer, as a player Li was very much of her generation. An Andre Agassi fan growing up, she was a power-baseliner with a two-handed backhand, and a late bloomer. The talent was always there, in her natural service motion, her heavy topspin forehand and especially her roundhouse two-handed backhand. Yet over the course of her first 10 years on tour, she reached just one Grand Slam quarterfinal.
The turnaround began in 2008, when she broke away from the Chinese National Team and began to work with her own coaches. The following year, she made the quarterfinals at the US Open; in 2010, she did the same at Wimbledon. Then, in 2011, at the French Open, she became the first Asian to win a Grand Slam singles title, at age 29. In 2014, she added an Australian Open title and reached a career-high No. 2. That same year, she appeared on the cover of Time, which named her one of the world’s 100 most influential people.
Li pulled her final surprise in 2014 when she retired at the peak of her powers and popularity. For Chinese tennis, her absence may one day be filled by a player, or hundreds of players, that she inspired. For the pro tours, her absence can still be felt. She was as well-liked by her fellow players as she was by fans, and as skilled with a quote as she was with a racquet. “Age like paper,” she said with a laugh when she was asked about playing into her 30s.
The message of Li’s career was that it didn’t matter how old you were, or where you came from—you could still conquer a world.
