The top two former hard court tennis players from the women side
As the summer hard court season of the game of tennis has started, let us have a look at the greatest top two former female tennis players in terms of the number of matches played as well as number of victories secured in the past on the hard courts.
Steffi Graf
Steffi Graf is undoubtedly one of the most successful winners in the Open era. Graf has won a total of twenty-two major trophies in her career and lost the final matches on nine occasions. She overall played in a total of thirty-one finals.
Graf captured a total of one hundred and seven trophies overall, and a large majority of those coming from hard surfaces. She has won the United States Open title on five occasions and the hard court Australian Open trophy on four occasions in her career. Graff has also succeeded in Miami five times back in 1987, 88, 94, 95 as well as 1996.
Graf also won a gold medal at the Olympic Games back in 1988.
Steffi Graf was also one of the most athletic and very attractive tennis players from the women’s side. She was famous for her excellent foot work, frequently dancing into her hits. Of course, Steffi was known most importantly for her terrific forehand as well as slice backhand.
Graf also had monstrous pace and a phenomenal athleticism, which she utilized well on all types of courts throughout her career. In her case, it’s in fact hard to argue what was her darling court as she looked comfortable on all of them. However, still she captured most of the titles on the hard courts.
Graf’s slice was one of her strongest weapons against her opponent on the court. She didn’t smash a lot of topspin backhands in her professional life. However Steffi was capable of smashing backhand passing shots versus opponents such as Martina Navratilova.
Martina Navratilova
Martina is perhaps the last great volley and serve player from the women’s side in the game of tennis.
There are only numbered tennis players to succeed at the tactic she followed but on grass. Jana Novotna captured the grass court Grand Slam title with the same approach back in 1998 and Amelie Mauresmo also won the 2006 Wimbledon title as a result of employing a similar tactic.
Martina was famous for her serve and volley style of game on hard courts in particular and all sorts of surfaces in general. Martina captured a total of one hundred and sixty seven single trophies, as well as a total of two hundred and twenty three double titles throughout her career. She won a total of eighteen major titles and reached the final of the major events on thirty two occasions in her career.
As far as her hard court stats are concerned, Martina captured the United States Open trophy on four occasions back in 1983, 84, 86 as well as in 1987. Moreover, she also won the Australian Open title on three occasions. Navratilova also grabbed the United States doubles titles nine times, eight of them coming from hard surfaces.
Martina’s strengths were her pace, fitness as well as her athleticism without any question. She famously made use of her sliced backhand to attack her opponent on the court. She however, wasn’t good in hitting a couple of baseline winners from the back surface on regular basis.
Martina didn’t have any weaknesses as such, once she mastered the art of getting to the top and stay there. However she was ultimately challenged by the younger players like Monica Seles and Steffi Graf.
The fact that Martina was around for quite a period of time with both of these players proves why she is such a legend in the game of women tennis.
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