Meldonium aside, where does Maria Sharapova rank in open era?

[heftylefty]

Of the players listed above, Sharapova does not have a single doubles title; thus not as complete a player as the others. Or maybe she does play well with others? Also she has never defended a Slam title.

Maria is barely an all time great...but an ATG nonetheless and a shoe in for the HoF.

 

[UnderratedSlam]

Of the players listed above, Sharapova does not have a single doubles title; thus not as complete a player as the others. Or maybe she does play well with others? Also she has never defended a Slam title.

Maria is barely an all time great...but an ATG nonetheless and a shoe in for the HoF.

Wut?

 

[trownjeff]

This is the break down as best as I can.

Serena, Navratilova, Graf, Court, Evert CLEARLY Top 5 in the Open Era. That is the Top tier, way above Maria.

Henin, Seles, Venus, King, the next tier. All clearly over Maria too of course.

Hingis and Goolagong in their own tier after that somewhere. Both clearly over Maria too.

So not a chance she is Top 11. I already named 11 players far over her. This is where it starts to get interesting. What is the order of Sharapova, Clijsters, Davenport, Austin, Mandlikova, Sanchez Vicario. Considering Davenport's 4 Year End #1s when Sharapova could not manage even 1, and the doping asterisk no matter how many, and I rate Davenport over her even with the 2 extra slams. Clijsters has a more impressive career in almost every aspect except for 1 less slam, no Career Slam (which isn't a big deal, especialy in womens game), and adding on the doping asterisk I likely have her over Sharapova too.

Sanchez Vicario probably goes behind her. Austin and Mandlikova probably behind her too. For now she probably barely makes Top 15, but I am being generous in being super leanient by almost ignoring her being a doper, and other factors. Many others probably have her 16-20, but I will be kind and say she barely makes Top 15.

 

[trownjeff]

Those who voted Top 10 need a brain check.

Navratilova, Evert, Graf, Serena, King, Court, Seles, Henin, Venus, Goolagong, Hingis all are clearly over her. That is 11 people, meaning her absolute best ranking is 12th. On what planet can she be top 10.

 

[trownjeff]

I think she can beat Venus on HC and clay but yeah it won’t be pretty on grass. It’ll be close with Davenport as they’re both massive hitters with subpar movement, by Davenport had a habit of choking at times. Hingis always struggled against power players so it’ll be tough for her to consistently win against Sharapova. The majority of Henin’s wins were also on clay (Henin’s best surface and Sharapova’s worst at the time of their matches), it’s a lot more even on HC. With Serena, yeah she got owned like there was no tomorrow.

So Henin smokes Sharapova bigtime on clay, and they are about even elsewhere. That just makes it abundantly clear Henin is far over Sharapova by your own logic, so I am not sure what you are trying to prove exactly there.

This myth of Hingis being useless against all power players has gotten overblown. She ended her career with a winning record vs Venus, even though she was on decline for atleast 2 years before her first retirement (and later made another comeback), and a good record vs all the big hitters minus Davenport to a degree. She totally owns Seles and Pierce, two of the power hitters. Sharapova struggles badly vs many non power players- Henin, Mauresmo, Clijsters, so not sure how it is obvious she would own Hingis.

Venus is the same as Henin basically. Venus is light years over Sharapova on one major surface (grass) while they are about even elsewhere so of course overall that puts Venus far ahead. The one difference is unlike Henin, Maria has a surface she is clearly superior on (clay) but the clay gap is not even a third of the gigantic grass gap, and Maria's clay greatness does not even scratch the surface of Venus's Wimbledon and grass greatness, so she is still clearly behind. Maria also never had a period she was the most feared player on tour and the favorite to win going into every single event she entered, no matter the surface, as Venus had for 2 years from mid 2000 to mid 2002.

 

[trownjeff]

Open Era Majors:

1	Serena Williams​	23	7	3	7	6
2	Steffi Graf​	22	4	6	7	5
3	Chris Evert​	18	2	7	3	6
=	Martina Navratilova​	18	3	2	9	4
5	Margaret Court​	11	4	3	1	3
6	// Monica Seles​	9	4	3	0	2
7	Billie Jean King​	8	0	1	4	3
8	Evonne Goolagong​	7	4	1	2	0
=	Justine Henin​	7	1	4	0	2
=	Venus Williams​	7	0	0	5	2
11	Martina Hingis​	5	3	0	1	1
=	Maria Sharapova​	5

Then, you have Mandlíková, Sánchez Vicario, and Clijsters with 4. Then, Wade, Davenport, Capriati, and Kerber with 3. So, I'd put Sharapova between 12 and 15.

Goolagong's slam count is a joke since the Australian Open was a non legit fraud slam in the 70s. She really is a 4 or 5 slam winner, not a 7. Same as Court is really a 20-21 slam winner, not a 24. Still even with that I would have her over Maria since she won over 70 tournaments, made 19 slam finals (most which were not a the Fraudstralian Open), and has an impressive array of achievements and performances that easily surpass Maria even with her having no more than Maria's 5 slams in an "adjusted for realism" scale. She also did not have the benefit to vulture a super weak era, which is the only thing Maria's 2 RG titles for instance comes from.

 

[trownjeff]

Yea you're right, my bad. Still you would expect her to beat Henin more on hardcourt than vice versa but that wasn't the case. I have to disagree about how those Davenport matches would play. Davenport was the better ball striker imo.

Henin has 3 hard court slams and 3 combined YEC/Olympic wins on hard courts vs only 2 and 1 for Maria. Even with her early retirement, which likely kept her from numerous more major hard court wins. No surprise to me she has a winning record vs Maria on hard courts, Henin is in fact the superior hard court player. She is superior to Maria on every single surface other than "maybe" grass, and even grass could be debated. If it were not for her Wimbledon title and Henin missing out on it somehow, nobody would think Maria is better than Henin on grass.