Serena Williams will keep her No1 ranking, irrespective of what happens in Saturday’s Wimbledon final, but when the American vacates that spot one day, Lindsay Davenport believes Garbine Muguruza will be the player replacing her.
Davenport, a former world No1 and three-time grand slam champion, believes the Spaniard has the best chance of eclipsing Serena, but that she must step up her consistency year round.
“It would be surprising if it wasn’t Muguruza, she’s amazing,” Davenport said when asked who she thought would be the next world No1 post-Serena.
“The questions are in her head, she put those aside in Paris and really concentrated and played well those two weeks.
“In my opinion, she’s way too good in her 52-week calendar to have something like seven or eight tournaments where she doesn’t get past the second round, something’s not totally right there.
“She’s so much better than so many players, I really feel like if she got the discipline down, she should be winning almost weekly or winning lots of matches.
“She’s been the most impressive one to me.”
Muguruza, who won the French Open last month before suffering a surprise second round exit to Jana Cepelova in the Wimbledon second round last week, has some bizarre statistics that stand out in her career activity.
Garbine Muguruza.
She has won just three titles – one of which is a grand slam – and has actually captured more doubles trophies (five) than singles.
Muguruza has lost in the first or second round in six tournaments this year but her run at Roland Garros helped her secure the No2 spot in the rankings coming into Wimbledon.
The 22-year-old was one of four players who, mathematically, had a chance of unseating Serena this fortnight but she was one of the first to drop out of contention due to her early exit to Cepelova.
Angelique Kerber would have had a shot at the No1 ranking had Serena not reached the final, but the American can hold on to it now for at least a few more weeks.
“It is significant to me. I really wanted to keep it. That makes me happy,” Serena said about keeping her No1 ranking.
“No one wants to give it up when they have it. Obviously I have a lot of tough competition. But at the same time, I am going to have to work really hard, be really determined, especially with this summer coming up, to kind of hold on to it.”
Serena is spending her 300th week at world No1 which is the second-most in WTA history, after Steffi Graf’s record 377.