Female tennis players by number of Grand Slam tournament titles won 1968-2024
As of February 2024, Margaret Court held the record for the most women's Grand Slam tournament victories. Hailing from Australia, Court won 24 Grand Slams in an illustrious career which spanned the 1960s and 1970s. Until recently, Court's record applied to both men's and women's tennis, however, Novak Djokovic equalled this record in the men's game with his victory at the 2023 US open.
Queens of the court
In the last two decades, sisters Venus and Serena Williams dominated women's professional tennis. Serena Williams, in particular, came the closest any player had come to matching Court's record, however, came one Grand Slam short before retiring in 2022. Of her 23 Grand Slam title victories, fourteen titles came at the Australian Open and Wimbledon, while she also won the US Open and French Open six times and three times, respectively. Since the Open Era began in 1968, only Steffi Graf was the only other player to have won each of the major tournaments three times or more. Graf also held the distinction of spending the longest time at No.1 in the WTA rankings as of 2023.
Who has won the most WTA singles titles?
While Court topped the list for most Grand Slam titles, it was Martina Navratilova who held the record for most singles titles on the WTA circuit as of 2023. As well as ranking No.1 in singles titles, Navratilova also excelled in doubles, managing a record-breaking 177 titles overall, which also put her top of the WTA rankings for doubles titles. Navratilova won titles with several different partners, but her most successful doubles pairing was with Pam Shriver, with whom she won 21 Grand Slam titles between 1981 and 1989. Impressively, Navratilova reached the final of the 2003 U.S. Open at the age of 46, some 13 years after her latest Grand Slam doubles success at the same tournament. In 2003, however, she lost out in the final with her partner, Svetlana Kuznetsova, marking Navratilova’s last appearance in a Grand Slam doubles final.