Serena Williams
Martina Navratilova
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 Serena Williams at #2 and Martina Navratilova at #7.
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The case for Serena Williams
Serena Williams won her first major at the 1999 US Open at age 17 and her 23rd — the Open Era record for any player, man or woman — at the 2017 Australian Open while roughly eight weeks pregnant. Between those bookends lies the most sustained excellence in women's sports history: 23 Slam finals won from 33 contested, 319 weeks at No.1 including a 186-week consecutive run that tied Steffi Graf's record, four Olympic gold medals, and two separate 'Serena Slams' (holding all four majors at once) completed eleven years apart, in 2002-03 and 2014-15. She won majors as a teenager and in her mid-thirties, beat No.1-ranked opponents across three different decades, and returned from a 2011 pulmonary embolism to compile arguably her best stretch, going 3.5 seasons from 2012 with a match record above 90 percent. Her serve is widely considered the greatest shot in the history of women's tennis. On dominance relative to field, she has a case for the top spot on any list.
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.