No Grand Slam, No Problem: 5 World No 1s who did so without Slam titles
Still going strong: Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark at the recent China OpenNearly 40 years ago - Nov 3,1975 to be exact, WTA World rankings came in to existence to determine the best female tennis player in the world.A lot of things have changed since then.The world population has nearly doubled, reaching 7.3 billion from 4 billion in 1975. Along the way a mere 21 female players have ascended to the tennis throne as the World’s top ranked player.The effectiveness of the rankings was never really questioned until 2003 when Kim Clijsters reached the summit without having won a Grand Slam title. There have been multiple instances of such anomalies since then, which has cast a shadow over the ranking system.This list takes a look at all the female players who reached World No:1 before winning a Grandslam title.Some of them would go on to win multiple Grandslams in the future,where as others would remain with that invisible asterisk marked against their time at the top.Trivia: In the Men’s section, Ivan Lendl was ranked as World Number 1 in 1983 before winning a single Grand Slam.He would win the first of his eight majors at the French Open the following year. The only man to share Lendl’Âs situation was Marcelo Rios who, sadly, would remain the only male World No. 1 never to have won a major title.
#1 Kim Clijsters - August 2003
Kim Clijsters has won four Grand Slam titles – three at the US Open and one at the Australian Open in addition to spending 20 weeks as the World Number 1. But when she first climbed to the top of the rankings in 2003 (on two separate occassions), she had never won a major title.
In fact, Clijsters would lose four major finals – thrice to compatriot Justine Henin and once to Jennifer Capriati before ending her barren streak with a 6-3 6-1 victory over Mary Pierce in the 2005 US Open final,which would lead to another short stint at the top of the rankings in 2006. Clijsters would announce her retirement from tennis in 2007 at the age of 24 owing to injuries.
The Belgian would make a comeback two years later, as a wild card entry to the 2009 US Open. She would surprisingly win the title again en route to collecting the WTA Best Comeback of the Year award that season despite being active for only 3 months of the year.
She would successfully defend her US Open title in 2010 before winning the Australian Open crown in 2011 to ascend to the top of the rankings for the fourth time. Interestingly, 2011 was the only year where she would win a Grand Slam and reach World Number 1 in the same season.
Clijsters would retire for good in 2012 with the distinction of being the first mother to hold the Number 1 ranking.