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15 Famous Female Tennis Players and Their Recall Cues

Meet 15 famous female tennis players, from Serena Williams to Coco Gauff, with signature achievements and simple cues for a name-recall challenge.

Nora Quist

Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Steffi Graf, Billie Jean King and Naomi Osaka are strong starting points when you’re naming famous female tennis players. Here are 15 names across several generations, grouped into small practice sets.

This isn’t a ranking of fame or greatness: each player comes with a specific achievement you can use as a recall cue.

The Williams sisters and three record-book greats

  • Serena Williams — 23 major singles titles. Her wins span all four Grand Slam tournaments: the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and US Open. Keep “Serena = 23” as your short cue, rather than trying to memorize every winning year. WTA Grand Slam records

  • Venus Williams — five Wimbledon singles titles. She also won the US Open twice. Use “Venus = Wimbledon” to give her a distinct association instead of remembering her only as the other Williams sister. WTA Grand Slam records

  • Steffi Graf — the 1988 Golden Slam. Graf won all four major singles titles and Olympic singles gold in the same year. Picture four trophies plus a gold medal. Olympics’ account of her 1988 season

  • Martina Navratilova — nine Wimbledon singles titles. Nine of her 18 major singles championships came at Wimbledon. Pair Navratilova with nine, then distinguish her from Venus’s five Wimbledon wins. WTA Grand Slam records

  • Chris Evert — seven French Open singles titles. Evert also won 18 major singles championships overall. Your cue is Evert on the clay of Paris, contrasting with Navratilova on Wimbledon’s grass. WTA Grand Slam records

Pioneers and breakthrough champions

  • Billie Jean King — the Battle of the Sexes. King defeated Bobby Riggs in the famous 1973 match, won 12 major singles titles and campaigned for equal prize money. “King = Battle of the Sexes” connects a name with a cultural event, not just a statistic. International Tennis Hall of Fame biography

  • Althea Gibson — breaking tennis’s color barrier. Gibson became the first Black player to compete at the US Nationals in 1950. She later won five major singles titles, including Wimbledon and the US Nationals in both 1957 and 1958. Cue: Gibson opened doors—and won trophies. US Open timeline, Hall of Fame biography

  • Monica Seles — six majors in two years. Seles won the Australian Open, French Open and US Open in both 1991 and 1992. Use “Seles = three plus three” for that concentrated run of success; she won nine major singles titles overall. WTA Grand Slam records

  • Maria Sharapova — Wimbledon at 17. Sharapova beat Serena Williams in the 2004 final, then went on to complete a career Grand Slam: winning each of the four majors at least once. Cue: the teenage Wimbledon champion. WTA biography

  • Li Na — Asia’s first major singles champion. Her breakthrough came at the 2011 French Open; she added the 2014 Australian Open. Cue: Li Na’s Paris breakthrough. WTA account of her historic win, WTA biography

Five names from more recent tennis

  • Naomi Osaka — New York and Melbourne. Osaka won the US Open in 2018 and 2020, and the Australian Open in 2019 and 2021. Pair her name with two hard-court majors, two wins each. WTA tournament record

  • Iga Świątek — repeated success in Paris. Often written Iga Swiatek without Polish diacritics, her French Open wins include 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2024. Cue: Iga on the Paris clay. WTA Grand Slam records

  • Coco Gauff — the 2023 US Open at 19. Gauff came back from a set down to defeat Aryna Sabalenka and win her first major singles title. Cue: Coco’s teenage triumph in New York. Contemporary match report

  • Aryna Sabalenka — back-to-back Australian Opens. Sabalenka won the 2023 and 2024 singles titles in Melbourne, completing the second run without dropping a set. Cue: Sabalenka’s Melbourne double. US Open report

  • Emma Raducanu — qualifier to US Open champion. Raducanu won ten consecutive matches, including qualifying, to take the 2021 title. She became the first qualifier to win a Grand Slam singles title. Cue: ten matches to the trophy. LTA biography

Turn the list into a recall challenge

Cover the names and work backward from the cues: 23 majors; Golden Slam; Battle of the Sexes; Wimbledon at 17; qualifier to champion. Then try naming one complete five-player group without looking.

For a timed run, enter full names—Serena Williams, then Venus Williams, rather than just “Williams.” In the NameIt recall game, you start with 30 seconds and each accepted name adds two seconds. When your tennis names run out, switch categories: the volleyball-player recall list offers another sports set to practice.