Venus Ebony Starr Williams (born June 17, 1980) is an American professional tennis player. She has been ranked World No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) on three separate occasions; as of November 2, 2009, she is ranked World No. 5. She is the reigning Australian Open, Wimbledon and US Open doubles champion and has won 20 Grand Slam titles: seven in women's singles, eleven in women's doubles and two in mixed doubles. In addition, she has won more olympic gold medals than any man or woman in tennis history, one in women's singles and two in women's doubles.

Christine Marie "Chris" Evert (born December 21, 1954) is a former world number 1 professional tennis player from the United States. She won 18 Grand Slam singles championships, including a record seven championships at the French Open and a record six championships at the U.S. Open. According to the Women's Tennis Association, she was the year-ending World No. 1 singles player in 1975, 1976, 1977, 1980, and 1981 and, according to many sources, in 1974 and 1978, also.

Evert's career win–loss record in singles matches of 1,309–146 (.900) is the best of any professional player in tennis history. In tennis writer Steve Flink's book The Greatest Tennis Matches of the Twentieth Century, he named Evert as the third best female player of the 20th century, after Steffi Graf and Martina Navratilova. Evert never lost in the first or second rounds of a Grand Slam singles tournament. She won 157 singles championships. In women's doubles, Evert won three Grand Slam titles and 29 regular tour championships.

Martina Navrátilová (born October 18, 1956, in Prague, Czechoslovakia) is a Czech-American tennis player. A former World No. 1. Billie Jean King said about Navratilova in 2006, "She's the greatest singles, doubles and mixed doubles player who's ever lived."

Navratilova won 18 Grand Slam singles titles, 31 Grand Slam women's doubles titles (an all-time record), and 10 Grand Slam mixed doubles titles. She reached the Wimbledon singles final 12 times, including 9 consecutive years from 1982 through 1990, and won the women's singles title at Wimbledon a record 9 times. She and King each won 20 Wimbledon titles, an all-time record. Navratilova is one of just three women to have accomplished a career Grand Slam in singles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles (called the Grand Slam "boxed set"). She holds the open era record for most singles titles (167) and doubles titles (177). She recorded the longest winning streak in the open era (74 consecutive matches) and three of the six longest winning streaks in the women's open era. Navratilova, Margaret Court, and Maureen Connolly share the record for the most consecutive Grand Slam singles titles (six). Navratilova reached 11 consecutive Grand Slam singles finals, second all-time to Steffi Graf's 13. In women's doubles, Navratilova and Pam Shriver won 109 consecutive matches and won all four Grand Slam titles in 1984. They also tied Louise Brough Clapp's and Margaret Osborne duPont's record of 20 Grand Slam women's doubles titles as a team.

Stefanie Maria Graf (born June 14, 1969, in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany) is a former World No. 1 female tennis player from Germany.
Graf won 22 Grand Slam singles titles, second among male and female players only to Margaret Court's 24. She is the only player to have won all four Grand Slam singles tournaments (Wimbledon, the US Open, the French Open and the Australian Open) at least four times each. In 1988, Graf became the first and only tennis player (male or female) to achieve the Calendar Year Golden Slam by winning all four Grand Slam singles titles and the Olympic gold medal in the same calendar year.

Margaret Court, (born 16 July 1942) is a retired former World number one-ranked tennis player from Australia. In 1970, she became the first woman during the open era and the second woman ever to win all four Grand Slam singles titles in the same calendar year. Court won 24 Grand Slam singles titles, more than any other player. She won 62 Grand Slam titles overall (24 singles, 19 women's doubles, and 19 mixed doubles), again, more than any other player. The International Tennis Hall of Fame states, "For sheer strength of performance and accomplishment there has never been a tennis player to match (her)."

Helen Newington Wills Roark (October 6, 1905 – January 1, 1998), also known as Helen Wills Moody, was an American tennis player. She has been described as "the first American born woman to achieve international celebrity as an athlete."

Wills was born Helen Newington Wills in Centerville, California, now part of Fremont, California, and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley. She was already quite famous when she married Frederick Moody in December 1929. She won approximately one-half of her major championships as Helen Wills and one-half as Helen Wills Moody.

Billie Jean King (born November 22, 1943 in Long Beach, California) is a former professional tennis player from the United States. She won 12 Grand Slam singles titles, 16 Grand Slam women's doubles titles, and 11 Grand Slam mixed doubles titles. King has been an advocate against sexism in sports and society. She is known for the "The Battle of the Sexes" in 1973, in which she defeated Bobby Riggs, a former Wimbledon men's singles champion.

King is the founder of the Women's Tennis Association, the Women's Sports Foundation, and World Team Tennis, which she founded with her former husband, Lawrence King.

Monica Seles ( born December 2, 1973) is a former World No. 1 professional tennis player and a member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame. She was born in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia (now Serbia) to Hungarian parents and became a naturalized United States citizen in 1994. She also received Hungarian citizenship in June 2007. She won nine Grand Slam singles titles, winning eight of them while a citizen of Yugoslavia and one while a citizen of the United States.

She became the youngest-ever champion at the 1990 French Open at the age of 16. She was the World No. 1 player in the women's game during 1991 and 1992, but in 1993 she was forced out of the sport for more than two years following an on-court attack in which a German spectator stabbed her in the back with a 10-inch-long knife. She enjoyed some success after returning to the tour in 1995, including a Grand Slam singles title at the 1996 Australian Open, but was unable to consistently reproduce her best form.

Serena Jameka Williams (born September 26, 1981) is an American professional tennis player and the current World Number 1 ranked female player. She has been ranked World Number 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) on five separate occasions. She regained this ranking for the fifth time in her career on the 2 November 2009. She is the reigning champion in both singles and women's doubles at the Australian Open and Wimbledon and in doubles at the US Open. In total, she has won 25 Grand Slam titles: 12 in singles, eleven in women's doubles and two in mixed doubles. In addition, she has won two Olympic gold medals in women's doubles. She also has won more Grand Slam titles than any other active female player and has won more career prize money than any other female athlete in history.

Evonne Fay Goolagong Cawley, (born 31 July 1951 in Griffith, New South Wales, Australia) is a former World No. 1 Australian female tennis player. She was one of the world's leading players in the 1970s and early 1980s, when she won 14 Grand Slam titles: seven in singles (four Australian Open, two Wimbledon and one French Open), six in women's doubles, and one in mixed doubles.

Justine Henin (born 1 June 1982), formerly known as Justine Henin-Hardenne (2002–2007), is a professional Belgian tennis player.

Henin has won 41 WTA singles titles and seven Grand Slam singles titles, including four French Open titles, one Australian Open title, and two US Open titles. She has also won the year-ending Sony Ericsson Championships twice and the singles gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics. Tennis experts cite her mental toughness, the completeness and variety of her game, her footspeed and footwork, and her one-handed backhand (which John McEnroe has described as the best single-handed backhand in the women's or men's game) as the principal reasons for her success. Billie Jean King has said that "pound for pound, Henin is the best tennis player of her generation."