The 6 women to be ranked at No 1 in singles and doubles at same time: Serena Williams No 3
Topping the WTA Rankings in the singles is an incredible feat now imagine being the No 1 ranked woman in the doubles as well. Quite an achievement, right?
Let’s take things further and imagine being the No 1 player in both the singles and doubles WTA Rankings at the same time.
Yes, six women have achieved this astonishing milestone and one of them is in a ridiculous category of her own.
In case you were wondering, since the launch of the WTA Rankings in 1975 a total of 29 women have been ranked No 1 in singles in the WTA while 49 have topped the doubles rankings.
Eight of them have been top in both the singles and doubles with six of them in the below list as they were No 1 in both rankings at the same time.
Reigning singles world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka has also completed the singles-doubles No 1 feat, but her achievement did not happen simultaneously as she was No 1 in the doubles back in 2021 and only became No 1 in the singles in 2024.
Venus Williams is the other one missing as she was No 1 in doubles from June until August 2010 while she topped the singles rankings in 2002.
The 6 women to be ranked at No 1 in singles and doubles at the same time:
=5. Kim Clijsters – 3 weeks
Belgian great Clijsters is a six-time Grand Slam winner as she won four singles titles and two in the women’s doubles.
She spent a total of 20 weeks at No 1 in the singles and four weeks at the top of the rankings in the doubles and three of the weeks were at the same time.
Clijsters was at No 1 in both rankings from 18 August until 7 September 2003.
=5. Lindsay Davenport – 3 weeks
Joint-fifth for a three-week stint of the world No 1 double is Lindsay Davenport.
The American first rose to No 1 in the doubles in 1997 before topping the singles rankings for the first time the following year.
However, her singles-doubles No 1 achievement came in 2000 from 17 April until 7 May.
Davenport, who won three singles Grand Slams and three doubles majors, spent a total of 98 weeks at No 1 in the singles and 32 weeks in the doubles.
4. Arantxa Sanchez Vicario – 7 weeks
Spanish legend Arantxa Sanchez Vicario had three different stints of being No 1 in both rankings at the same time.
Vicario spent 111 weeks in total at the top of the doubles rankings and 12 weeks at No 1 in the singles.
She first achieved the singles-doubles world No 1 feat at the same for one week in February 1995 (13-1) and then spent another two weeks atop both rankings from 27 March to 9 April before her final four-week stint from 15 May to 11 June.
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The 6 youngest women to hold world No 1 spot in WTA Rankings: A 16-year-old Martina Hingis at No 1
3. Serena Williams – 8 weeks
All-time great Serena Williams won 23 singles Grand Slam titles and 14 doubles major titles (all alongside sister Venus). She also achieved the singles Career Grand Slam and the doubles Career Grand Slam.
In total, Williams spent 319 weeks at No 1 in the singles – third behind Steffi Graf and Martina Navratilova – and eight weeks at No 1 in the doubles.
Those eight weeks from 7 June to 1 August 2010 at No 1 in the doubles came at the same time when she topped the singles rankings.
2. Martina Hingis – 29 weeks
Martina Hingis sits fifth in the all-time singles list for most weeks at No 1 with 209 weeks while she also spent 90 weeks at No 1 in the doubles.
The Swiss won five Grand Slam singles titles, 13 women’s doubles titles and seven mixed doubles titles between January 1997 and September 2017.
Hingis had five different spells at No 1 in both the singles and doubles at the same time with the first eight-week stint starting on 8 June 1998 and ending on 2 August. After a short break, there was another eight-week spell from 17 August to 11 October.
She had another two spells in 1999 (four weeks from 7 June to 4 July, and two weeks from 9-22 August) before her final seven-week stint from 31 January to 19 March in 2000.
1. Martina Navratilova – 103 weeks
The incredible Martina Navratilova won 59 Grand Slam titles titles: 18 in singles, 31 in women’s doubles, and 10 in mixed doubles.
She spent 332 weeks at No 1 in the singles (second behind Graf’s 377) and 237 weeks at the top of the doubles rankings (first).
The American would’ve topped this list with just her first stint at No 1 in both rankings at the same time as that was 39 weeks.
Navratilova was the first to achieve the feat as she topped both rankings from 10 September 1984 until 9 June 1985 and then had a two week spell from 14-27 October.
But her third spell took the cake as she was top for more than a year from 9 June 1986 until 16 August 1987.
