Ashleigh Barty - Still a long way to Stefanie Graf
Yesterday the WTA named Ashleigh Barty Player of the Year for the second time. The record holder still has a few awards ahead of the Australian.
by Jens Huiber
last edit: Dec 08, 2021, 07:12 am
There is little to complain about when Ashleigh Barty was voted Player of the Year 2021 on the WTA Tour. The Australian finished the year at the top of her class again, for the third time in a row. In addition, Barty won one of the four majors at Wimbledon, and before that he also played successful tennis in Miami and on Asche in Stuttgart. Barbora Krejcikova would certainly have been a worthy winner too. The French Open winner in singles finally succeeded in pair skating with Katerina Siniakova. In this category there was the title for Krejcikova as well as in that of the most improved player.
With her second choice for Player of the Year, Ashleigh Barty caught up with Monica Seles, Lindsay Davenport, Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin. In the case of Seles in particular, it could have been significantly more if a criminal tennis fan in Hamburg had not interrupted the Serbian-born woman's career with a knife attack when it was impossible to foresee how good Seles could one day be.
Will Serena win major title number 24?
The record holder for “Player of the Year” is Stefanie Graf. The German was awarded eight times, Martina Navratilova and Serena Williams each on seven occasions. But what counts more, of course, is the sporting component: In this regard, Barty has two major titles (in 2019 in Roland Garros and currently in Wimbledon), while Graf has finished her extraordinary career with 22 Grand Slam titles in singles. Serena Williams has even one more to show her career record.
Number 24 has been Serena's big goal for years. Should it somehow still work out in 2022 (and the US legend otherwise plays as few tournaments as in recent years), Serena would probably not be voted the best player of the coming season. But she would definitely go through as comeback of the year. Carla Suarez Navarro received this award in 2021 after surviving cancer.