As with the men there are frequent discussions about who is the greatest female singles player of all time with Steffi Graf, Martina Navratilova and Serena Williams being the three players most often nominated.
In March 2012 the TennisChannel published a combined list of the 100 greatest men and women tennis players of all time. It ranked Steffi Graf as the greatest female player (in 3rd place overall), followed by Martina Navratilova (4th place) and Margaret Court (8th place). The rankings were determined by an international panel.
Sportswriter John Wertheim of Sports Illustrated stated in an article in July 2010 that Serena Williams is the greatest female tennis player ever with the argument that “Head-to-head, on a neutral surface (i.e. hard courts), everyone at their best, I can’t help feeling that she crushes the other legends.”. In a reaction to this article Yahoo sports blog Busted Racket published a list of the top-10 women’s tennis players of all time placing Martina Navratilova in first spot. This top-10 list was similar to the one published in June 2008 by the Bleacher Report who also ranked Martina Navratilova as the top female player of all time.
Steffi Graf is considered by some to be the greatest female player. Billie Jean King said in 1999, “Steffi is definitely the greatest women’s tennis player of all time.” Martina Navratilova has included Graf on her list of great players.In December 1999, Graf was named the greatest female tennis player of the 20th century by a panel of experts assembled by the Associated Press. Tennis writer Steve Flink, in his book The Greatest Tennis Matches of the Twentieth Century, named her as the best female player of the 20th century, directly followed by Martina Navratilova.
Tennis magazine selected Martina Navratilova as the greatest female tennis player for the years 1965 through 2005.Tennis historian and journalist Bud Collins has called Navratilova “arguably, the greatest player of all time.” Billie Jean King said about Navratilova in 2006, “She’s the greatest singles, doubles and mixed doubles player who’s ever lived.”
source: wikipedia
