Talk:List of female tennis players

Players in bold font
There are many players in bold font who do not quite meet the criteria stated at the top of the page. Should the criteria be changed, in which case some more players should be in bold font, or should the names of players in bold font who do not match the criteria be changed to ordinary font? Coyets 14:52, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The criteria should not change IMO.--Svetovid 15:56, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Criteria for inclusion?
I found this page in a very uneven condition with some players that have never been in the WTA Top 200 included, a random mixture of inclusions and exclusions between Nos. 101-200, and a significant minority of current Top 100 players omitted. For the sake of consistency and avoidance of bias, I have updated it to the inclusion of all current WTA Top 200-listed players and propose that each week that the WTA Top 200 rankings are updated, any new entries (previously ranked outside the Top 200) should be added if not already present. I have not removed players that have never been ranked in the Top 200 however, since for one thing there is no common agreement to this criterion to date - it is merely my tentative proposal, in the realisation that to get to the WTA Top 200 these days in what has become a very, very competitive sport players have to be seriously good and committed, and that many players ranked between 101-200 are of interest as future Top 100 players or at least for still being able to put up a strong fight and cause occasional upsets against Top 100 players.

Since there are no retrospective records of the WTA world rankings available on the Internet except for annual ones at a particular time of each year, it is going to be impossible to apply the same standards with consistency retrospectively. However, I would suggest that it might be worth considering going through the annual lists at some point and fishing out all Top-100-listed players for at least the past 20 years or so, depending on how far back the lists go, since their names are likely to be remembered by anyone who has followed tennis with even a moderate level of interest.

I think this page can be a very useful first port of call if consistent standards are upheld when it comes to selecting articles that need writing or expanding. Philip Graves (talk) 11:26, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

PS: I have covered the Top 100 players in the annual snapshot of the rankings for the years from 1989 to 1999 inclusive in a major edit today; the records on the Internet do not go back much earlier than 1989, but I want to take things forward to cover 2000-2007 later since some of those players will have dropped out of the Top 200 by today and been missed out of the list. Philip Graves (talk) 13:48, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

PPS: Page now includes (by design at least) not only all players in the current WTA Top 200 but also all players listed in the WTA Top 100 annual snapshots for the years 1989 to 2007 inclusive, all listed in the WTA Top 200 annual snapshots for the years from approx. 2004 to 2007, and all who were in fact in the WTA Top 200 at some point in the last few years but not at the time of the snapshots and who are still today in the Top 350 (this achieved by checking their highest rankings on WTA records - sometimes players may have been significantly within the Top 200 between two annual snapshots but outside it at the snapshots, and some of these can today still be found lower in the rankings; the logical next step would be to search further and deeper in today's ranking lists for others still active in the lower rankings today who were formerly in the Top 200 but missed out on it at the time of the snapshots, though I suspect there are not too many of these around since if a former Top 200 player slips below the Top 350, then in many cases she may decide that she is not going to make professional tennis pay any longer and move on to something else, so it may be like looking for needles in a haystack). Philip Graves (talk) 18:13, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Update: I have added a provisional notice of criteria for inclusion at the top of the actual page since too many people are wasting time by inserting spurious data that only has to be deleted again. There are some recently added entries such as Anastasia Sevastova (currently No. 226) that do not meet these criteria yet, but in her case I believe it quite likely that she will do fairly soon so perhaps we should give her a year to make it before pre-emptively taking her out again. But I would suggest that in future current players that have not yet made it to the Top 200 should be removed as soon as they are added by someone, unless they have won a WTA doubles tournament. Philip Graves (talk) 10:35, 8 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Either someone satisfies the criteria or she doesn't. No one should be on the list based on a probability that she will satisfy the criteria at some point in the future.  Criteria, no matter how carefully drafted, are not going to prevent people from adding players (or others) that don't meet the criteria.  People are not going to understand the criteria, are not going to know where to look to see if a candidate satisfies the criteria, don't care about the criteria, or will add names just because they think it's cute to do so.  Tennis expert (talk) 17:08, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Agree to a point, and can understand your cynicism, especially in view of the amount of junk you've had to sift out lately. But I think you've done a great job simplifying the wording on the main page to make the criteria crystal clear to any reader, and I think that at the very least the criteria notice as it now stands should act as a deterrent to people who don't know where to look or want to sneak someone in unnoticed just to be clever or to because they like her - it can't hurt to let these people know that there are those of us who take the page seriously as an objective, neutral Wikipedia document. Regarding Sevastova, again I agree with you in principle, and I wouldn't be bothered at all if she was taken out until she makes the grade. Looking at her rapid rise over the past eighteen months, it seems a dead cert but for an injury or accident that she will soon, and it's for this reason alone that I thought it might not be worth the effort of removing her only to reinstate her probably within a few weeks. But certainly I agree with you that there's no point in applying exceptions to criteria simply because someone almost meets them and another user wanted that person in the list pre-emptively!Philip Graves (talk) 08:56, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Criteria is simple
The criteria for inclusion in a wiki-list is simply having an article in Wikipedia that can be linked to. This proves notability and provides the source/citations necessary to remain in the list. Black (un-linked) or Red links (items without a main article) as a main entry in the list are pointless and uninformative. The item article must be written before inclusion in the list(s). GenQuest (talk) 23:45, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

More Advanced Player Data from French Wikipedia
The French version of Wikipedia is in a very advanced condition when it comes to its records of past WTA players and their highest rankings, surpassing the information available at the ITF and WTA sites, and appears to have been expertly compiled, though sources are not apparently stated. The equivalent to this article on the French site is here: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_de_joueuses_de_tennis Although the arrangement by country on that page is not ideal, the links to articles on it could be very useful for writing at least stubs with essential statistics etc. on the many famous names of the past 37 years or so who do not yet have articles on the English wikipedia. Philip Graves (talk) 12:28, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Suspect entries to consider for deletion
Any suspect entries of which no records of competitive play on the main WTA or ITF circuits exist may be posted here and discussed for deletion.

Someone just deleted 'Catherine Anderson (USA)' without explanation and this was reverted because no explanation was provided. I decided to investigate. Apparently she competes regularly on the seniors tour but there are no records of her having competed on the main tour on the available ITF and WTA records online, which is not to suggest necessarily that she never did, since she was born in the mid-1940s and may have competed at the main professional level longer ago than the online records cover. The entry was added on 22:11, 2 November 2007 by an anonymous user - records indicate that this is the only post to Wikipedia ever made by this one user, which might suggest a personal interest in getting her recognised on the list. Personally I am not convinced that she should be on the list since no records of her having any ITF or WTA history outside the seniors can be found, and success on the seniors tour alone is not an acceptable criterion for notability in my opinion. So perhaps the deletion was justified. However, I don't have any reference books on players from long ago or detailed knowledge of these eras, so I'll leave her on for now pending any further information forthcoming about her history, although I'm sceptical currently.


 * I think she should be deleted. I could find no record of her competing on the main amateur or professional tours.  Tennis expert (talk) 10:26, 2 March 2008 (UTC)¨

Agreed, and done (three weeks later) Philip Graves (talk) 19:19, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

The entry for 'Sally Moore' (US) is highly suspect. I could find no records of a year-end ranking for any player of this name after checking every alternate year during the 1990s when she should have been active if born in 1976. So then I turned to the ITF record for this player, and note it is completely corrupted and incongruous, giving 1976 as her place, and not date, of birth, no date of birth, a total of four main-draw lifetime wins, a surprising burst of activity at the US Open in 1976, in which she supposedly reached the second round despite being supposedly newborn that year, no activity between 1962 and 1974, and a burst of major success at Wimbledon in 1959, when she supposedly reached the semifinal, in addition to further appearances at Wimbledon in 1958, 1960 and 1961. Clearly, not much of this can be correct. If there was a player named Sally Moore who reached the Wimbledon semifinal in 1959, perhaps TennisExpert can verify this from other records? If the same player disappeared from grand slams between 1962 and 1975 before making a comeback in 1976, Kimiko Date is not in uncharted water historically, but frankly I doubt it is true, and in any case the date of birth for the mysterious Ms. Moore is at least thirty-five years too late. Philip Graves (talk) 21:05, 7 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Sally Moore (married name "Huss") was born June 8, 1940. She played many ordinary tour events and played Grand Slam events (and occasionally was seeded) during the late 1950s and early 1960s.  U.S.: 1957 (3R), 1958 (QF), 1959 (3R); Wimbledon: 1958 (1R), 1959 (SF), 1960 (2R), 1961 (1R).  She was ranked in the U.S. top 10 in 1957, 1958, and 1959.  This is undoubtedly the same Sally Moore who lost in the second round of the 1976 US Open, when she would have been 36 years old.  There is ample precedent for large gaps in participation in Grand Slam events, e.g., Karen Susman.  However, I cannot explain why her birth year is listed as 1976 in this article.  That is clearly wrong and should be corrected.  After retiring, Moore Huss played USTA senior events successfully and wrote at least one tennis book, entitled "How to Play Power Tennis With Ease" (1979).  You can find her autobiography here.  Pictures are here and here.  She explains why she quit the tour at 20 years old, why she returned to the tour at age 28, and why she quit again to get married, here.  She lost in the second round of the 1975 Wimbledon qualifying tournament and was ranked 25th in the U.S. that year.   That's about all I know about her.  Tennis expert (talk) 23:03, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages needed for the following players
Zhang Shuai (Chinese player who has risen fast into the Top 200 in the past year or two) - this currently links to a Chinese football player instead. I don't know how to move the existing page for the football player to Zhang Shuai (football) while retaining its edit history, though I could recreate Zhang Shuai as a disambiguation page once that was done. Anyone knowing how to do this, help would be appreciated so we can get the tennis player's page going under Zhang Shuai (tennis) linked from the disambiguation page. Philip Graves (talk) 19:24, 22 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Zhang Shuai moved to Zhang Shuai (football) with edit history. Zhang Shuai is now disambiguation page.  Zhang Shuai (tennis) can now be created.--Damon Mah (talk) 08:49, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for this! Philip Graves (talk) 15:08, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Anne Schaefer (German player who just recently reached the Top 200) - link goes to a page for a former American actress. Disambiguation page will be needed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Philip Graves (talk • contribs) 19:56, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 2 and half years gone and still this happens. Could someone fix this? 85.217.51.162 (talk) 23:07, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The German tennis player is called Anne Schäfer, and she is listed in this article under that name, although ITF and WTA list her as Anne Schaefer. So, I think a hatnote is more appropriate than a disambiguation page. Coyets (talk) 15:47, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Louise Allen is a redirection page to the singer and actress Alice May. The tennis player, Louise Allen, is clearly sufficiently notable to warrant an article 'Louise Allen (tennis)'(?), but this article has not yet been written. In the meantime, all but three of the links to Louise Allen, including the link on this list, are actually referring to the tennis player and not the actress. Two of the three are referring to a writer, and the other one to another singer with the same name. The simplest fix would involve someone writing the missing article and adding a disambiguation page (or a hatnote). Coyets (talk) 17:59, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Article title
This article's title "List of female tennis players" is misleading as that sounds like a comprehensive list of all female tennis players. As the first line in this article says "This is a list of top international female tennis players." so this article title should be changed to "Top female tennis players"?

Also, including players who were ranked in the top 200 at any time in her career includes many players that are not top players in the world. Someone ranked 101-200 may be an up-and-coming player, but they are not a top player. Compare to List of male tennis players (this article name is also misleading) which only includes top-25 ranked players. I know we can debate precisely where the top player ranking cutoff should be, but a top player is more like top 25 or top 50, not top 200. Including people in the top 200 at any point in history just makes this page too long and defeats the article's original purpose. So can we tighten the inclusion criteria? --Damon Mah (talk) 11:14, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Personally I agree the title is misleading since potentially it could without further definition include anyone and everyone; but also I think that it would be a grave mistake, to the detriment of the primary useful functionality of the page (which is as a portal of links to articles on players of importance and interest to fans of tennis, not just those who have reached the very top of the game), to try to alter the carefully thought-through and clearly expressed criteria for inclusion, by which the contents have already been tightened up a lot compared with formerly, simply in order to fit a subjective perception of the word 'top'. I suggest instead that we replace the word 'top' with some other that serves the purpose of summarising the criteria for inclusion less ambivalently.


 * The women's game has a lot of depth these days in terms of the quality of players at different ranking points, and my personal feeling is that the Top 200 is broad enough to include virtually all players who are going to be of interest to tennis fans, whereas the Top 100, Top 50 or Top 25 definitely would not.


 * Perhaps instead there should be a separate list created called 'List of top international female tennis players' which serves a narrower function, including only those who have been ranked in the World Top 25, without affecting the usefulness of this article.Philip Graves (talk) 15:07, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


 * No title is going to be perfect, which is not a problem unique to this article. The introduction serves perfectly to define who is and is not included in this article.  I agree with Philip Graves that no change to the scope of this article should be made.  Tennis expert (talk) 08:45, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I think today's defeat of the World No. 1 (Ivanovic) by the World No. 188 (Coin) in the 2nd round of a Grand Slam is a case in point in support of the relevance of the entire Top 200-ranked women's tennis players at the top level of the game today. Coin has been a fixture on this page for some time now, even though nobody has actually written an article about her yet (which fact will no doubt change practically overnight). Philip Graves (talk) 23:24, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, and still Coin hasn't become a recognizable player. Ivanovic will probably always be, she has been #1 and won a Grand Slam tournament. One or more victories of top players does not make other player notable. 85.217.51.162 (talk) 23:15, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Why couldn't the criterias be the same as for men's list? I copied these entries and there were over 1000! The men's list has though also about 500 players. But it is approximately half of this huge amount in here. 85.217.51.162 (talk) 23:15, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * If it should be decided not to tighten the criteria, would it be possible to simplify them by removing the words "before the inception of the WTA world rankings system"? How many players have reached the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam tournament after the inception of the WTA world rankings system without reaching the top 200 world rankings on or after January 1, 2000, or the WTA Top 100 world rankings before January 1, 2000? Coyets (talk) 16:10, 16 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Those top 100 and top 200 criterias are the ones which make the list big, I think. List of male tennis players has ranking criterias like these: top 5 before Open era and top 25 in Open era. And that doubles criteria is also quite looser in here: only 1 WTA title is needed, while in men's list a Grand Slam or Olympic title is required. 85.217.41.210 (talk) 10:13, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Article Formatting
I would like to change the basic formatting of this article, and was about to start when I decided that it would probably be best to ask what other preferences are. List of male tennis players is wonderfully laid out. It is interesting, colourful, informative. It looks professional and engaging. The list of female tennis players, in comparison, is lacking in all of those things. I'm really keen to change the formatting this weekend, to make it more consistent with that of List of male tennis players. Any objections? Maedin \talk 09:48, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, it will probably take some time, but I have started the reformatting. No objections were raised here.   Maedin \talk 12:22, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Good idea to make the formatting more colourful with flags (I didn't know how to do that), but please, could you kindly wait before deleting players who were active before 2000 because you can't find a highest ranking for them owing to the fact that the WTA and ITF main sites do not present records of highest rankings for them with the player profiles - eg Louise Allen? Early this year I went through annual snapshot pages for WTA rankings from 1990 onwards and added in every player who appeared in the Top 100. I think Louise Allen was almost certainly one of them. Because they were only annual snapshots at a particular time of year, I probably missed a lot of players who entered the Top 100 for less than a whole year and were out again by the time of the annual snapshot, but it would seem uncharitable to exclude those who were within it! I'll have to search for the page reference again for the site where I took those details from. It was a full list of the complete WTA rankings, not just the Top 100, but I only counted players in the Top 100 during those years that predate full ITF records. Thanks for improving the appearance of the article - it already looks a lot better. And well spotted on Ekaterina Afinogenova: I'm not sure quite why she got in when the records show she did not quite make it to the Top 200! Philip Graves (talk) 21:45, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * (e/c!)Hi Philip, thanks very much for your comments! I'm glad you approve of the formatting.  I apologise for removing Louise Allen if she does belong–I didn't remove her only because I couldn't find her ranking on the WTA site.  I'm aware that it isn't quite so cut and dry for many of the earlier players, which is why I took the time to search for further information, for players like Jeanne Arth and Cilly Aussem and Roberta Alison.  I did the same for Louise Allen and couldn't find any firm figures and noted that she hadn't won any titles.  But it sounds like you have a much better source than I could find and we can certainly add her if she fits!  I'll be more careful and will make sure that I always mention in edit summaries any players that I do remove, for exactly this reason—hopefully any mistakes I make or sources I can't find will be filled in by others like yourself, :-)   Maedin \talk 22:17, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Louise Allen was no. 87 in the year-end rankings for 1992: please see: http://www.sonyericssonwtatour.com/global/Pdfs/rankings/pastyears/Singles_Numeric_1992.pdf

I've left that as an open link because you can substitute the date part and check any year from 1989 to 1999 that otherwise is not covered when you directly search for a player. But if in doubt a quicker way to check would be to find the edit I made where I added in all the Top 100-listed players from those year-end rankings lists early this year, and compare the players that were included before it and those after. Any I added in at that time were taken directly from those lists. I'm sorry that there isn't a more full historical record of highest ranks, as Allen for example might have been a few places higher than No. 87 in her peak week! But the fact that she got into the Top 100 is nonetheless verifiable from those files on the official WTA site, so I see no reason not to restore her in the listings for the time being. Philip Graves (talk) 22:16, 9 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much for the link, that will be helpful in the future! Again, I apologise for removing her and am glad you have better information than me, :-)  I'll add her back in now.   Maedin \talk 22:21, 9 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Beat me to it, thank you!  Maedin \talk 22:23, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

The flag icons you've been adding are unbelievably visually distracting and are unnecessary. Please stop. Tennis expert (talk) 05:39, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I did request comments before I began the activity. There have been no complaints at List of male tennis players, where this format has been in place for months, if not years.  I don't find them visually distracting or unnecessary, and neither does Philip Graves (see above), and unfortunately, I am disinclined to undo the work I've already done based on one oppose.  I am, of course, more than willing to halt the activity and revert my edits, if other users agree that the flags detract from the article.   Maedin \talk 07:45, 15 December 2008 (UTC)


 * The flags serve no pupose whatsoever, greatly increase the size of the article, and clutter up the text. And what was done on the men's list is irrelevant here.  Tennis expert (talk) 14:16, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I like the flags. I see no issue when the country is already listed. Is there a size limit for lists (besides general manageability)? -- Mjquin_id (talk) 05:56, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I personally do not have a problem with long pages, if they serve a useful function, and especially alphabetically ordered lists tend to be quick and easy to navigate through whatever their length. Adding a little extra information to the length of each entry will massively increase the length of the article as measured by bytes of storage space consumed, but will not increase the length of the article in terms of the total number of rows to navigate through at all. It's worth remembering that this list is going to keep getting longer every year in terms of the number of rows of entries as new players come through. There may in an average year be about 25 new players meeting the notability criteria. 25 new listings with additional information on peak performance and country flag will inevitably use several times the number of bytes compared with 25 plain listings by name and country only. But hard drive storage gets cheaper and processors faster each year at a rate that will make this increase in length as measured by bytes very manageable in the long-term in my opinion. Current Wikipedia guidelines about length of articles in bytes will rapidly become outdated and need to shift with the times in my opinion. When the current list is fully reformatted with the additional information that has so far been provided for players whose names begin with A and B only, the total length of the article in bytes may be doubled to tripled. It may exceed current Wikipedia guidelines for length of articles as a result. But if so, my belief is that those guidelines are flawed and that the page will have been optimised and will not merit cutting. If, however, a groundswell of prevailing opinion by administrators were to emerge requiring the article to be kept within a certain limit of bytes, then and only then I would suggest that it would be best to remove firstly the flags, and then some of the additional information, to save space. This would be the lesser of two evils compared with cutting out entries altogether and restricting the notability criteria. Philip Graves (talk) 23:47, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Naming
It's "U.S. Championships", not "US Championships". And "US Open", not "U.S. Open". Tennis expert (talk) 14:45, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for pointing that out, I was unaware of the convention. I will change that in the article when I have more time.   Maedin \talk 15:04, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Italics
Why are you italicizing the names of some players? Tennis expert (talk) 14:48, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Players with italicised names have retired from the sport. I have not, as yet, added this note to the beginning of the list.   Maedin \talk 15:04, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Tables
Tennis expert, the tables are an excellent idea. The list looks much much better now, thank you! Maedin \talk 19:11, 17 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi Tennis expert, I'm up for increasing sortability and trying ideas, but I'm not sure the new concept works as it is. The addition of five columns makes the tables harder to read, especially with text-heavy yes and no fields.  Also, the previous system worked on a specific change only if a player had definitely retired.  Creating a yes or no column for it leaves the table looking "unpopulated", when, in fact, the information is just impossible to get for some players.  I like the idea of being able to look up the retired players, so this isn't a criticism of what you're doing, but the lack of data for that field makes the attempt more confusing than useful.


 * Being able to sort for players who have won Grand Slam titles is more useful, and the data for that is at least definitive! I still feel that the implementation is text heavy, and the deep title for Grand Slam Singles Titles offends my sense of proportion, too, :-)


 * I don't think that bolding and italicising player names is the only option with this list, but I don't think that this tabling of it is an improvement. Perhaps a compromise between the two options is available.


 * Anyway, I would appreciate it if we could discuss the changes and maybe pick out the better aspects. Do you plan to get rid of splitting the list by letters?  Thanks!  Maedin \talk 10:36, 25 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think the new tables are harder to read at all. And the ability to sort by birth or death date is a big improvement for researchers such as myself.  I don't understand what you mean by "text-heavy yes and no fields", and leaving the retired field blank is valid because it simply represents the state of our knowledge about the issue.  There's nothing wrong with us not knowing the answer to something.  I believe the bolding-italicizing, just bolding, or just italicizing of player's names is far more confusing than spelling out the data in columns.  Finally, I don't understand what you are saying about "text heavy" and "deep title" for Grand Slam singles titles.  I do not have any plans to eliminate the splitting of the tables by letter.  Tennis expert (talk) 10:54, 25 January 2009 (UTC)


 * If the tables are going to be split by letter, then the ability to sort is of limited usefulness. How often (if ever) would one need to look up the earliest birth of the J players, or all of the retired D players?  Over an entire list of players, yes, of course.  But by letter?  A researcher will still have to sort all 26 tables to find the Grand Slam "yes", just as they now have to scroll through and find the bold names.  With much respect, it is easier to spot bold names than it is to find a "yes" in a column which is next to another yes and no column.


 * By text-heavy, I mean that the yesses and nos are "cluttering", too many letters, and too much repetition. At the end of a long list of No, the word loses meaning and you forget what column you are in anyway.  Think how it will look in K, for example.  As I said before, I am not against the sorting, and I think some aspects of it are really good.  I would suggest continuing to italicise only those players that have retired (or introduce some other option) and changing the Grand Slam yes and no to something graphical, like a tick for a yes.


 * By deep title, I was referring to the fact that the heading for that column is four lines deep, so that the column width is kept appropriate for Yes and No. It makes more sense to compromise: say, two lines deep and a wider column.  If the retired column is removed, then it will be even more appropriate.   Maedin \talk 11:23, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi Maedin and Tennis Expert! I'm really impressed by the amount of work you are both putting into improving this page. I'm not so good on the heavy programming side so I'll just keep adding anyone who newly qualifies week by week and check here and there for missing high ranking data when I have time. But I wanted to comment on this debate just for what it's worth: Personally I didn't like the italicisation of retired players: it made their names harder to read and the overall list appear less coherent. It looks much neater having all names in a uniform, clear font. I think having a column for retired status may be of some use to some researchers as Tennis Expert says, but I also think this one is far wider than it needs to be, out of proportion to importance. It should be wide enough for just one character or symbol, maybe with a space to either side, and that should be an R where the player has retired. The heading to the column can either be vertically spread down six lines: RETIRED (one character per line), or if limited to one row, an R followed by a footnote link would suffice, and the footnote can state 'Retirement Status: R indicates player confirmed no longer active by ITF' or something to this effect. Also I think that a whole column dedicated to the player's status as being or not being a grand slam title winner is superfluous to need and takes up too much space again to the detriment of the valuable text in the right-hand column fitting onto fewer lines than it does in some cases; it's superfluous to have this column because anyone can see just by looking in the text notes whether or not a particular player has won a grand slam title; I can understand researchers might want to quickly sort, but it doesn't take much effort for them to scroll down the textual notes column and pick out all the ones who are declared there to be grand slam winners. Just my opinion anyway! Great work folks! Philip Graves (talk) 20:21, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I am in favor of removing the "retired" column or the italicization of retired players' names. But I would like to preserve the "Grand Slam singles title" winner column, especially if we decide to make this one huge table without sorting by letter. The longer the table, the more important that sortability becomes. Tennis expert (talk) 20:50, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I am in favour of removing the retired column and the italicisation, as well. For the majority of players, this information is really only available by scrutinising their year of birth and recent activity, which is available in the table.  I agree with Tennis expert, though, that the Grand Slam singles titleist information should stay; but I do like Philip Graves idea of making it a narrow column with a short heading that has a footnote.  The full title heading, and its significance, can be included at the beginning and end of the page.  Even the heading Grand Slam would be fairly intuitive if a number is populating the column.  Putting a number in that column, by the way, is an inspired idea, Tennis expert, and means the sorting is even more informative.


 * Finally, since sorting is the way to go, then Ordinary Person is right; this can't be split by letters. If the table is just one huge table, then the numbering on the left will need to go, because imagine the nightmare it would be to add a player to the Bs?  The numbering would become a minefield soon enough.  As it currently is, the player name field sorts on first name, so the player names should be surname first.  This will also be a nightmare with links.  What is the better option here?  Azarenka, Victoria or massive renumbering for each new addition?  Presumably we are all still in agreement that this table defaults to alphabetical order by last name?  Maedin \talk 07:54, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I added the numbering so that after you've sorted the table, you don't have to reload/refresh the table from scratch if you want to see the unsorted version of the table. Sorting can have unpredictable results sometimes.  But, yes, I understand the problem with line numbering.  Wish there were a way to make the table insert the line numbers automatically, using a wildcard character, for example, but again that's beyond my expertise.
 * I would like to avoid "Grand Slam" as a short-cut for "Grand Slam singles titles". The former implies winning all four GS tournaments in a single calendar year.  Tracy Austin, for example, never won a "Grand Slam".  Tennis expert (talk) 20:53, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Centreing
I've added a question on centreing in tables to the technical village pump. I am not experienced with tables and was hoping Tennis expert could make sense of any replies! Maedin \talk 09:06, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Contemporaneity of flags-quite like them visually but what's the rationale for eg a swastika for 1930s Germany and the 15 year old Rainbow Nation flag marking every South African entry for over a century? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.242.170.69 (talk) 23:00, 5 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Probably due to the lack of reliable information on the particular colonies or regions that a "South African" may have been from. If it were possible to determine whether or not, say, a South African player were actually Cape Colony or Transvaal, then I would have no objection to using those particular flags.  Other users might have an objection though: while West Germany and East Germany and the political strife of that era are common knowledge, I doubt if the average person knows the make-up of the current South Africa.   Mae din \talk 07:05, 6 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Would it not be possible to use the 1928-1994 national flag of South Africa? Surely this is what the men's list does. The Cape Colony and the Transvaal joined the Union of South Africa in 1910. So, the South African flag should surely be the correct flag for South Africans between 1928 and 1994. For South Africans from 1910 to 1912 and from 1912 to 1928, there are also national flags of South Africa which should be used. I do not think there are any pre-1910 South African players in the list for whom it would be necessary to use the Cape Colony flag or the Transvaal flag. The oldest South African player I could find in the list was Irene Bowder Peacock, for whom the 1912-1928 national flag of South Africa should be used. By the way, I also like the use of flags in this list. Coyets (talk) 17:04, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Alphabetical splitting
Obviously this is still a work in progress, but it seems to me that the tables will be more useful if _not_ split into letters. If all the items are in a single table, one can sort all the players by nationality, for instance. Ordinary Person (talk) 03:19, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

WTA ranking events
I just want to check this: currently the intro says that it is sufficient that a player has "won at least one WTA ranking event".(EDIT:I mean specifically for DoublesOrdinary Person (talk) 23:55, 22 April 2009 (UTC))

I took this to mean a WTA tour event, but it could be taken to mean any event that has WTA ranking points attached, which would include ITF circuit events and hence be a much broader category.

Does the criterion in fact mean specifically WTA tour events? If so, I suggest a reword.

Ordinary Person (talk) 15:09, 22 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, I think it actually means WTA tour events, and that is how the players have been "selected" so far. I wouldn't like to extend it to any event with WTA ranking points, as I think the criteria for inclusion is already quite broad (overall, not just in doubles) and the list is extremely long.  But, of course, open to discussion on that point.   Mae din \talk 06:35, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay, I shall "be bold" and change the wording.Ordinary Person (talk) 07:15, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

The list is a little bit confusing
Sorry, I don't know, which player is retired and which player is not retired. I'm confuse with the list, because no indication (example bold and italic) to show which player is retired or not. Thank you for reading.  tatasport  talk with me here 06:02, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

list of male and female tennis players
I just started a discussion about the list of tennis player articles on the wikiproject Tennis. We should harmonize the male and female lists. You are welcome to weigh in with ideas. Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Tennis. MakeSense64 (talk) 13:57, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Ridiculous list
I've seen some long lists and some trivial lists and this meets both qualities of ridiculousness. WTA Top 200 is way over the top trivial, and even if it were not it is grossly unfair to have a top 200 in modern times but a quarterfinal in a grand slam tournament is needed before the inception of the WTA world rankings system. that is recentism and trivial. This should be streamlined to the men's chart, and even that smacks of recentism, but isn't bloated beyond reason.

To have two articles that are so very different is quite strange. Anyway that's my thoughts on this ladies list. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:57, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Have always wondered why the men's and women's list should have so vastly different criteria. Can't think of a single good reason why that should be the case. As this involves two articles perhaps we should move this discussion to the tennis project talk page.--Wolbo (talk) 23:03, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
 * No problem with that for me. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:13, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Discussion moved to talk:WikiProject Tennis. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:53, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

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Anne Marie Seghers
I've just discovered that Anne Marie Seghers does exist in Wikipedia but the first name is hyphenated (Anne-Marie Seghers). Can someone who knows how and cares change something to make this available.
 * ✅ Thanks. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:51, 16 November 2020 (UTC)