WTA Special: 2014 Players of the Year

Galileo is currently on the "injured reserve" list and has a difficult time typing out his thoughts, so he'll have to forgo his weekly recaps for the remainder of the season. But he was quite the dedicated lot and managed to fight through the pain to deliver his WTA Players-of-the-Year list.

So...

*2014 WTA PLAYERS OF THE YEAR*
1. Serena Williams
...Williams had not had the top ranking since 2009 but in February of last year she took it off Vika Azarenka. Vika ,incidentally, is now ranked #32. She has already had a whole career with ups and downs and she's only 25. Mind you by the time Williams got to 25 she had already had about five careers. By the way, Williams is 64-18 in finals. That blows my mind. No, this was not quite like 2013 which was her best year ever. She didn't win eleven titles this time, she only won seven. Williams just beat Halep 6-3/6-0 in the WTA Finals after the Romanian beat HER 6-2/6-0 four days earlier, only to get handed the beat down of her life in return. Williams had an awful year at the slams. She lost to Ivanovic, Muguruza and Cornet at the first three slams. Those are all players she should be outclassing. She won the U.S. Open, but here is the list of players she beat: Townsend, King, Lepchenko, Kanepi, Pennetta, Makarova and Wozniacki. So a poor year at the slams. But she has unquestionably been the world's best player throughout the year. She has won a title just about every month on the tour and that is very impressive. She has been the best in the world in almost every area. She may be starting to fade slightly, but she is still utterly dominant. She is still the favourite to win everything she enters. I think she will finish at number one next year, though she'll lose it several times over the course of the season.

W: U.S. Open, WTA Finals, Miami, Rome, Cincinnati, Brisbane, Stanford
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2. Maria Sharapova
...Halep has not won a slam yet, and so it would be rather difficult to put her above any actual slam winners. Sharapova did not end the year well, as she played poorly during the WTA Finals. She had a chance at number one but could not take it. With only fourth round points to defend in Australia and not much else until the clay swing she has put herself in a great position to take the top spot. Sharapova was solid ,if not spectacular, at slam level and made the fourth round all four times but only won the French. Losses to Cibulkova, Kerber and Wozniacki were all surprising, but she did feel like the world number two for the second half of the year. She really stepped it up. She went 4-0 in finals and also made a lot of semi-finals. She was unable to crack the Williams enigma but she did well in other regards. She took time off to focus on Sochi but returned and continued to win. By now Maria must just be praying for Williams to retire. Sharapova is the best player in the world on clay and one of the best on any surface. This is especially the case if Williams isn't around.

W: French Open, Beijing, Madrid, Stuttgart
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3. Li Na
...she started the season 21-3, but injuries prevented her from taking the world number one ranking which she surely would have taken at some point. She achieved her highest ranking [#2] in the year of her retirement. She inspired a nation of two billion. She brought tennis to China. She became the highest-ranking Asian singles player ever. Titles are irrelevant. She was the best player in the world in all but name for four months. She dominated the tour early on and became a deserved world number two. She pulled a Novotna and finally won her favorite slam [the grand slam of Asia Pacific] on the third attempt. Li Na was often perplexing and always mystifying. She was an enigma but in the end she had a Hall of Fame career. She has done more for China than perhaps they realize. And she did it by disobeying one of the strictest regimes in the world. How can you not love that?

W: Australian Open, Shenzhen
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4. Petra Kvitova
...I said last year she would win another Wimbledon. I have been proved correct, but much sooner than I expected. Todd has devoted a lot of writing about Petra. I don't know if you've noticed, but she tends to be inconsistent. At the slams she went out in the first round once, the third round twice and she won Wimbledon. To illustrate her perfectly I'll list the round she reached in her tournaments:
SF, 1st, QF,2nd, QF, 4th, 2nd, SF, 2nd, 3rd, QF, W, 3rd, 2nd, W, 3rd, W, RU. Look at that. How am I meant to dissect her season? Let's say overall it was good and leave it there.

W: Wimbledon, Wuhan, New Haven
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5. Simona Halep
...I know I put all four slam champs in the top four. Can you blame me? I can see her simply dominating in Bucharest through the years and then they will call a stadium Halep and the other Simona. I watch Halep play and at the end of the match I always, no matter how comprehensive the victory, look back and wonder how she won. She just wins and that is part of her beauty -- you can watch one of her matches and not understand how she wins. But she does. Oh, boy, does she. Halep went 43-14 this year. She ascended to the second spot. She managed to make Williams blink occasionally, too. Halep dominated the rest of the top ten in this past WTA Finals. Halep is looking better and better as her career goes on. That U.S. Open upset aside, she was flawless this year at the slams. She became the slam player everyone knew she could be. At barely 23, she has the world at her feet. One of my favorite Billie Jean King quotes: “Ladies, here's a hint; if you're playing against a friend who has big boobs, bring her to the net and make her hit backhand volleys. That's the hardest shot for the well-endowed.” Halep heeded her advice reduced her breast size. That could be the key to all this winning she is doing. I've never really talked about boobs before on here. It never seems to come up on the ATP Tour.

W: Doha, Bucharest
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6. Eugenie Bouchard
...she isn't here because of the amount of titles she won. She won her maiden title this year in Nurnberg, whilst Kvitova stopped her in Wuhan and at Wimbledon. She went 19-4 in slams. She made three semi-finals. Nobody else got close to that apart from Halep. She made quality opponents look like they were the inexperienced ones. She made fans all over the world. She was the best slam player this year because she won when playing well and badly. At the U.S. Open, she ground her way into the fourth round. She knows how to win in the major leagues. Next year I see her making eight finals. She looks set, after doing so well this year and rising to number five, to rise further and perhaps hit the top four. She has a lot of points too defend but I think she is fully capable.

W: Nurnberg
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7. Ana Ivanovic
...I thought Ivanovic was done. I thought that slump was permanent. I thought Ana was finished and I wasn't the only one. She fell to outside the top fifty and it looked to be over for her. She has proven me and others wrong. Finals in Cincy and Stuttgart compliment that quartet of titles. It was a strong year for the world number eight. That forehand was back to where it had been before. She and Sharapova had a great rivalry throughout the year. Her year was kick-started by her beating Williams and making just her second slam quarterfinal since, what, 2009? She really took it to Williams and the American struggled to handle it, though Serena helped by having a bad day. Ivanovic will not win another slam, but another final is a possibility. She has shown us what she can do throughout this year.

W: Tokyo, Birmingham, Monterrey, Auckland
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8. Caroline Wozniacki
...I can't really leave out a slam finalist. Well, I'm leaving out Cibulkova, but she would have been number eleven or so on this list. It feels as if the Woz had a better year than the stats suggest. Wozniacki has always had two major problems: she struggles to be aggressive and she lets her father be a little too controlling. She has solved those problems to an extent. It remains to be seen if she has the level needed to win a slam but she made another final this year. Not only that but she also managed to come back from being close to falling out of the top 20 or so to making the WTA Finals field and beating Sharapova. She has taken control of her destiny and has upped the tempo of her game. She is now primed for a strong 2015. Another slam semi or two surely beckon for the girl who came back from the wilderness.

W: Istanbul
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9. Flavia Pennetta
...last year I had a surprising Italian in these as well -- Vinci. Will it be Giorgi next year? Flavia made a semi-final last year at the U.S. Open, her first. The first Italian lady to make the top ten was in form but nobody expected the consistent high level of play she delivered. She won her first Premier Mandatory in Indian Wells, the "fifth slam," if you will. She also featured in a pair of slam quarterfinals. It was an up and down year but she is the Italian number one in form and, surely, soon in ranking, too. A fairly strong year from her with a few big highlights. It's impressive. Oh and there was this too:



W: Indian Wells
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10. Venus Williams
...let's talk about Williams again. A different Williams this time. She won her 45th title. She also made the final of Toronto and two other smaller tournaments. She has put together a solid year. She has beaten the world number one and she has also looked good. Losses to Makarova [in three tight sets] Kvitova [she should have won and was the better player] and Errani are understandable. The bottom line is that it felt like Venus was back and healthy. Also, in 46 matches she hit 222 aces. That puts her tenth on the list. Not bad at all.

W: Dubai
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HM- Casey Dellacqua
...Casey has made two fourth rounds at slams [the same as Aga] this year and has gone from finishing at #130 last year to finishing inside the top thirty this year. No, she hasn't won anything but she has been consistently playing above her usual level. She has stepped it up this year and, hey, she's now a better player than Vika is. The rankings don't lie right. Right?
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Fallen from Grace: Aga Radwanska
...no, Aga will not be in the top ten list. What has she done? For her ability and talent she should be making slam finals. She has been touted as the next Hingis and one can see that. She has a lot of craft and uses angles very well, but Henin and Hingis had that, too. She needs power nad she needs more than just soft hands. She was playing Barrois at Stuttgart a few years back and the commentator said, "she lacks a big shot to break down Barois' backhand" and she was right. Radwanska has still not added that. After that Wimbledon final I thought she would move on and up. Since then she has won a couple of small titles and the Rogers Cup. She has made just two slam semi-finals. I think we have seen her limitations now. She looks set to simply be a solid top ten player for the next few years, but no more. She can easily be out-hit and is always ripe for an upset. She hasn't even made a U.S. Open quarterfinal yet. And that is why she is not on the list, regardless of how well she did at the WTA Finals
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I did a link through history on one of my recent ATP posts. You can do it with the Women, too.

In the beginning, there was two-time Wimbledon champion Maud Watson, and the first Wimbledon title she won was the first Ladies Wimbledon. That was in that historic year of 1884. The same year, John McCain went to college. Lottie Dodd played Maud Watson, and she also played Blanche Bingley Hillyard, who went 7-6 in Wimbledon finals. Blanche played Dorothea Lambert Chambers, who in turn played the as-great-as-she-was-star-crossed Lenglen. Lenglen played the rather brilliant Helen Wills Moody but just once. Helen Wills, who won everything, played Helen Jacobs, though the war halted their careers.

Helen Jacobs played Alice Marble, who played Pauline Betz Addie, who played an all-time great in Margaret Osborne DuPont. Margaret won 25 U.S. Open crowns in various disciplines. She passed recently, in 2012, and was a great loss to the tennis world. DuPont played another great in Maureen Connolly, who played against Louis Brough Clapp. Clapp played against Gibson, and Gibson played against the excellent Darlene Hard. Hard played against so many good players, and one of those was Maria Bueno, who still visits Wimbledon most years. Bueno played Billie Jean King, who had a stunning rivalry with Court.

Court had a great rivalry with Evert, too, but the rivalry of them all was Navratilova's with Evert. They played 80 times, the most any two have ever played one another on the WTA. That record will not be broken. Navratilova went on to play the best Grand Slam Player of the modern era in singles, Steffi Graf. The German played Martina Hingis a lot and the Swiss played Venus, who played Henin, who played Serena, who played Azarenka , who played... well, we'll see who the next great will be.

The WTA story continues and, as you can see, even abridged it is still fairly lengthy.

Thanx all and visit WTA BACKSPIN please.

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