Most competitive women´s era

[kiki]

While much has been posted about male´s tennis eras, a lot less has been discussed about women´s era.

Not all time great players, but just comparing the competitive level of the, say, top 15-20 players of a given time.

My list starts in 1970´s, since I couldn´t see, for age reasons, the 1920´s,30´s,40´s,50´s.However, I think the early to middle 50´s, were great with players like Louise Brough,Alice Marble, Mo Connolly,Gibson,Fry,Hart and some others.again, in terms of depth at the top level.

While 1970 to 1975 had a cast that included Court,King,Evert,Goolagong,Wade,Casals and young Navratilova, I´d say the first great and densely competitive era would go from 1979 to 1982 or 1983.King and Evonne ( and Wade) were ending their playing years but did it so convincingly (King reached the 1982 W semis and, of course,Evonne took the 1980 title).Plus Evert,Navratilova, young stars like Hana Mandlikova and Tracy Austin and a support cast that includes Turnbull,Barker,Ruzici,Hanika,Fromholtz,Bunge,Kohd e,Stevens,Potter,Jordan,Shriver,Stove,Jausovec in no particular order.It was the first truly Golden Era for women and the TV and media coverage were huge.

The second half of the 80´s had that big showdown between Navy and Steffi, but there was no depth, since Evert was clearly declining,Hanna unmotivated most of time, and Sukova,young Sabatini,Shriver,Garrison,Mc Neill were cannon fodder.

Then we have the 90´s.That is the second Golden Era and IMo, the toughest and probably the most interesting ever, quality wise and character wise.Graf,Seles,Arantxa and Conchita martinez,Pierce,Fernandez,Novotna,Sabatini and later on, young Venus and Serena,Clijsters,Davenport,Capriati,Hingis,Kournik ova ( while the rest of the above mentioned kept very very competitive) gave us a lot of enjoyment.

from 2003 or so till now, 10 years of declining competitive levels.except for Sharapova,Clijsters,Henin, the 2 Williams and, for a while, Kuznetsova, no tough competition and poor depth.

[Lionheart392]

I vote for the 90s but I think saying women's tennis post 2003 has been poor, while mainly accurate, is overlooking some good years. Circa 2005 you had players like Davenport, Henin, Mauresmo, Clijsters, Venus, Serena (admittedly not playing consistently well), Myskina, Pierce, Sharapova etc. That wasn't bad at all.

[BTURNER]

Kiki, this question on the womens side is about surface, surface, surface. There weren't bad eras/ good eras. There were great slow court eras or great fast court eras. Late 60's to 78' was incredibly deep grass court era, but the mid 80's through mid 90's was incredibly deep clay court era. Thereafter it was all hard court dominance until it didn't matter because venues went for sameness.