List of Famous Tennis Players
Simona Halep
Simona Halep is a Romanian professional tennis player. She has been ranked world No. 1 in singles twice between 2017 and 2019. In total, she has been No. 1 for 64 weeks, which ranks tenth in the history of the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) rankings. Halep was the year-end No. 1 in 2017 and 2018. She has finished each year ranked no lower than No. 4 since 2014 and has the longest active streak of being ranked in the top 10. She has won 22 WTA singles titles and has finished runner-up 17 times. Halep has won two Grand Slam singles titles: the 2018 French Open and the 2019 Wimbledon Championships.
Dominic Thiem
Dominic Thiem is an Austrian professional tennis player. His career-high singles ranking by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) is world No. 3, which he first achieved in March 2020. He is the second-highest ranked Austrian player in history, behind former world No. 1 Thomas Muster. He has won 17 ATP Tour singles titles, including one Grand Slam title at the 2020 US Open where he came back from two sets down to defeat Alexander Zverev in the final. With the win, Thiem became the first male player born in the 1990s to claim a Grand Slam singles title, as well as the first Austrian to win a US Open singles title. He had previously reached three other Grand Slam finals, losing at the 2018 and 2019 French Open to Rafael Nadal, and at the 2020 Australian Open to Novak Djokovic. Thiem was also the runner-up of the 2019 and 2020 ATP Finals, where he lost to Stefanos Tsitsipas and Daniil Medvedev respectively.
Ashleigh Barty
Ashleigh Barty is an Australian professional tennis player and former cricketer. She is ranked No. 1 in the world in singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) and is the second Australian WTA singles No. 1 after fellow Indigenous Australian Evonne Goolagong Cawley. She is also a top 20 player in doubles, having achieved a career-high ranking of No. 5 in the world. Barty has won eight singles titles and ten doubles titles on the WTA Tour, including one Grand Slam singles title at the 2019 French Open and one Grand Slam doubles title at the 2018 US Open with partner CoCo Vandeweghe. She is also the reigning champion in singles at the WTA Finals.
Angelique Kerber
Angelique Kerber is a German professional tennis player. A former world No. 1 and winner of three Grand Slam tournaments, she made her professional debut in 2003 and rose to prominence upon reaching the semifinals of the 2011 US Open as the No. 92-ranked player in the world. She ascended to the top of the rankings on 12 September 2016, thus becoming the twenty-second and oldest player to achieve the number-one ranking for the first time.
Nick Kyrgios
Nicholas Hilmy Kyrgios is an Australian professional tennis player. As of November 2020, he is ranked No. 45 in the world in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and is the third highest-ranked Australian in the ATP rankings. Kyrgios has won six ATP titles and has reached eight ATP finals, including the 2017 Cincinnati Masters.
Martina Hingis
Martina Hingis is a Swiss former professional tennis player. She spent a total of 209 weeks as the singles world No. 1 and 90 weeks as doubles world No. 1, holding both No. 1 rankings simultaneously for 29 weeks. She won five Grand Slam singles titles, thirteen Grand Slam women's doubles titles, winning a calendar-year doubles Grand Slam in 1998, and seven Grand Slam mixed doubles titles; for a combined total of twenty-five major titles. In addition, she won the season-ending WTA Finals two times in singles and three times in doubles, an Olympic silver medal, and a record seventeen Tier I singles titles.
Victoria Azarenka
Victória Fyódorovna Azárenka is a Belarusian professional tennis player. Azarenka is a former world No. 1 in singles, having claimed the top ranking for the first time on 30 January 2012. She was the year-end No. 1 in 2012 and has held the top ranking for a combined total of 51 weeks. Azarenka has won 21 WTA singles titles, including two Grand Slam singles titles at the, becoming the first Belarusian player, male or female, to win a Grand Slam tournament singles title. Azarenka is also a three-time major finalist at the US Open, finishing runner-up to Serena Williams in both 2012 and 2013 and to Naomi Osaka in 2020. Her other important singles achievements include winning six Premier Mandatory tournaments, four Premier 5 tournaments, and the singles bronze medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, as well as being the runner-up at the 2011 WTA Finals to Petra Kvitová, reaching three additional Grand Slam singles semifinals, and an additional nine major quarterfinal appearances. She finished with a year-end top 10 singles ranking for five consecutive years between 2009 and 2013.
John McEnroe
John Patrick McEnroe Jr. is a former professional American tennis player. He was known for his shot-making and volleying skills, in addition to confrontational on-court behavior that frequently landed him in trouble with umpires and tennis authorities.
Virginia Wade
Sarah Virginia Wade, is a former professional tennis player from Great Britain. She won three Major tennis singles championships and four Major doubles championships, and is the only British woman in history to have won titles at all four Majors. She was ranked as high as No. 2 in the world in singles, and No. 1 in the world in doubles.
Steffi Graf
Stefanie Maria "Steffi" Graf is a German former professional tennis player. She was ranked world No. 1 for a record 377 weeks and won 22 Grand Slam singles titles, which ranks second since the introduction of the Open Era in 1968 and third all-time behind Margaret Court (24) and Serena Williams (23). In 1988, she became the only tennis player to achieve the Golden Slam by winning all four Grand Slam singles titles and the Olympic gold medal in the same calendar year. Furthermore, she is the only tennis player to have won each Grand Slam tournament at least four times.