Martina Navratilova
Chris Evert
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Martina Navratilova leads 2 of 3 categories. Our all-time ranking places Martina Navratilova at #7 and Chris Evert at #9.
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The case for Martina Navratilova
Navratilova rewrote what a tennis career could contain. Her 167 singles titles are the most by any player in the Open Era, man or woman; add 177 doubles titles and 59 total Grand Slam trophies (18 singles, 31 women's doubles, 10 mixed) and she is the most decorated champion in the sport's history. Her peak was the most dominant sustained stretch ever played: 86-1 in 1983, a 74-match winning streak in 1984 that remains the Open Era record, six consecutive majors across 1983-84, and 331 total weeks at No.1. Her record 9 Wimbledon singles titles included six in a row. Beyond the numbers, she changed the sport's methods — the first champion built on modern strength training, nutrition and sports science, a full decade before it became standard — and her 80-match rivalry with Chris Evert (43-37 Navratilova) is the longest great rivalry tennis has produced. She won her last major, mixed doubles at the 2006 US Open, at age 49.
The case for Chris Evert
Evert set standards of consistency that still look unreal. Her career winning percentage of roughly 90 percent — about 1,309 wins against 146 losses — is the highest of the Open Era for either sex, and on clay she won 125 consecutive matches between 1973 and 1979, the longest single-surface streak in the sport's history alongside Nadal's. She reached the semifinals or better at 34 consecutive Grand Slams she entered, and won at least one major every year for 13 straight seasons, from 1974 to 1986, finishing with 18. A pioneer of the two-handed backhand and the ice-cool baseline precision that earned her the nickname the Ice Maiden, she spent 260 weeks at No.1 and captured a then-record seven Roland Garros titles. Her 80-match rivalry with Martina Navratilova, which she trailed 37-43, dragged both women to greater heights and defined the women's game for over a decade. Peak dominance and unmatched reliability place her comfortably inside the all-time top ten.