The top five women on the WTA Tour can be listed according to which players have had the best careers, but if we’re asking about the top five players right now, one important change has to be made. Find out what that change is in the list below:
Serena Williams
There is no doubt about the top player in the world. Serena made her way to the Australian Open final and simply had one of those nights when her shots just didn’t click, and her serve just wasn’t as good as it needed to be. It happens. She still fought hard in a three-set match, but Angelique Kerber had the better night and won her first Grand slam tournament. Serena still is the measurement by which all other female tennis players evaluate their own games. Serena is still going to be favored to win the French Open and Wimbledon. She’s still the player everyone else wants to beat and tries to beat… but usually does not. This is not a hard decision to make here. Serena is number one until she consistently falls to a lower standard of performance.
Angelique Kerber
The player who beat Serena in Australia is as good a choice as any other for number two on this list. Kerber stood up to Serena’s power and offense, playing her typical defensive game but making fewer mistakes and being able to redirect the ball better than she’d been able to in the past. Kerber’s defensive skills have always been extremely good, such that she should be a regular contender at the Grand Slam events. She still has problems with consistency – she did not do well in tournaments following the Australian Open – but she has finally broken through and should be able to raise her game to a higher level this season.
Victoria Azarenka
The Azarenka story hasn’t turned the corner. Vika hoped she was ready to meet Serena in the Australian Open final, but Kerber picked her off. Azarenka’s groundstrokes were not as crisp as they needed to be. Her mental game is good, but it is not what it was when Azarenka was winning Australian Open championships and making U.S. Open finals. She wanders off the reservation for brief periods of time, but those periods are enough for other players to catch and surpass her. She is almost there, but not quite. She’s still a contender, though, more so than most.
Agnieszka Radwanska
Radwanska isn’t winning major tournaments, but she made the semifinals in Australia and has posted solid results dating back to the fall of 2015. She’s a crafty and clever player who defends extremely well. This will keep her in a lot of matches and enable her to make quarterfinals and semifinals of a lot of tournaments, which many others on the WTA don’t do often enough. She’s clearly a top-five player.
Belinda Bencic
This is a very questionable selection, but it’s the result of a very simple news story: Maria Sharapova failed a drug test at the Australian Open and will almost certainly be suspended for a long time. Last week, she came out publicly to admit that she had failed a drug test to get ahead of the news cycle. She’s been using a specific drug that’s been legal for many years but starting on January 1st, 2016, it became illegal. She’s subsequently been dropped by a couple of sponsors and some others are taking the wait-and-see approach, but any way you slice it, this isn’t a good look for her. Sharapova would have been number two on this list, but since she’s out of commission for a while, she has to be replaced by somebody. Simona Halep has been terrible this year, and the same goes for Petra Kvitova. Bencic is really just an alternative, but she did beat Serena last year and shows signs of being a contender for years to come. We’ll see if she can build on her previous success and justify us having her on this list.
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