Ranking the top 10 women’s tennis players of the 21st century

We spent last week counting down our list of the top 100 athletes of the 21st century, and two women’s tennis players made the list, starting with Serena Williams at No. 2 overall.

We also voted on an overall top 10 for women’s tennis. Who else made the list of some of the greatest women’s tennis players of the 2000s?

Key accomplishments: 23-time major champion (second most by any player all time), women’s record 365 major match wins, 73 career titles (fifth most by a woman in the Open era).

There is little that Williams didn’t achieve during her record-setting career, including winning 23 major titles. But it might have been her last one that was the most improbable. She needed to win one more Grand Slam to break the tie with Steffi Graf for most in the Open era (which began in 1968) — a mark Williams said she had been “chasing for a really long time” — and remained in the 2017 Australian Open draw even after finding out she was pregnant shortly before competition began. She was in peak Serena form, never dropping a set en route to a final showdown with her sister Venus. She defeated Venus to take sole ownership of the record.

Williams played in four more major finals after her return from maternity leave and a complicated childbirth. She didn’t win another title. “The way I see it, I should have had 30-plus Grand Slams,” Williams wrote in Vogue in a 2022 essay announcing her impending retirement. “I didn’t get there. … But I showed up 23 times, and that’s fine. Actually it’s extraordinary.” — D’Arcy Maine

Key accomplishments: Seven-time major singles champ, five-time Wimbledon champ, 270 major match wins (fifth most by a woman in the Open era), a record 89 career major appearances in singles.

The elder Williams sister burst onto the tennis scene as an enthusiastic and joyful teenager, and likely would have won many more titles if not for the arrival of Serena. While Williams’ results have been remarkable, and she has the most major titles among active women on tour, she has been equally influential off the court as a champion for gender equality in tennis and beyond.

While advocating for equal pay at Wimbledon, Williams asked tournament officials at a meeting a simple question: “Would you want your daughter or your sister or your mother or your wife or a loved one to be a woman paid less?” Wimbledon started offering equal prize money for men and women in 2007. Williams called the achievement “the best…