The 10 women with the most clay court titles: Chris Evert with 70, Serena Williams joint-ninth

The clay season is here, with the best players on the WTA Tour starting to battle it out on the dirt.

Here, we look back at the 10 WTA greats to have won the most titles on the surface.

=9) Serena Williams – 13 titles

Williams is probably best associated with her dominance on hard and grass courts, but she was also a formidable clay-courter on her day – with a haul of 13 titles placing her on this list.

The American was a three-time champion at Roland Garros, lifting the title in 2002, 2013, and 2015, though her most successful clay event was the Italian Open, which she won four times.

Former world No 1 Williams was also a three-time champion on the green clay at Charleston and twice a champion in Madrid.

=9) Justine Henin – 13 titles

Widely considered one of the greatest clay-courters of all time, Henin is a four-time French Open champion – a haul only bettered by two other women in the Open Era.

Outside of her triumphs in Paris, in 2003 and 2005-07, the Belgian was a three-time winner of the German Open, and also a two-time champion in both Charleston and Stuttgart.

Henin’s first WTA title also came on the surface, at the 1999 Belgian Open in Antwerp.

8) Monica Seles – 14 titles

Seles won three straight French Open women’s singles titles from 1990-92, a feat that has only been matched by Henin and Iga Swiatek in the Open Era.

However, the former world No 1 also found clay success elsewhere with 14 titles to her name – including her first WTA title as a 15-year-old in Houston in 1989, an event she would win twice more.

Among other successes, Seles was also a two-time Italian Open champion and twice a winner in Amelia Island.

7) Martina Navratilova – 18 titles

While best known for her domination on grass courts, tennis legend Navratilova was also an accomplished clay-courter, with her 18 titles ranking her seventh all-time on the WTA Tour.

The Czech-born American’s greatest successes on clay were her French Open triumphs in 1982 and 1984, though she won her first WTA title on the dirt in Orlando in 1974.

Navratilova was also a three-time champion in Amelia Island, while she won her last clay title in Hilton Head in 1990.

=5) Conchita Martinez – 19 titles

One of the greatest competitors of her generation, former world No 2 Martinez won 19 of her 33 WTA titles on the dirt.

Martinez’s most successful event was the Italian Open, which she won for four straight years from 1993-96, while she was a two-time German Open and Charleston Open champion.

The Spaniard holds the rather dubious Open Era record of the woman to have won the most clay titles without having won the French Open, finishing as the runner-up in 2000.

=5) Arantxa Sanchez Vicario – 19 titles

Matching compatriot Martinez on 19 titles is Sanchez Vicario, who won 19 of her 29 WTA singles titles on clay across her legendary career.

The former world No 1 won three French Open titles across her career, triumphing in 1989, 1994, and 1998, while she was a five-time champion at her home tournament in Barcelona.

Sanchez Vicario was also twice an Amelia Island champion and a German Open champion, among other successes.

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4) Evonne Goolagong – 20 titles

Aussie icon Goolagong is one of just four women to have won 20+ titles on clay, with just under a quarter of her 84 titles coming on the surface.

Goolagong won the French Open in 1971 but also won her first Open Era title on the clay in Sydney in 1968, successfully defending her title in 1969.

The Australian also won titles in Rome, Hilton Head, Toronto, and Munich on the dirt across her legendary career.

3) Margaret Court – 24 titles

Court’s legendary career spanned both the amateur and professional eras, and her haul of 24 clay titles in the Open Era has still only been bettered by two women.

In the professional age, Court was a three-time champion at Roland Garros, claiming back-to-back titles in 1969 and 1970, before a third triumph in 1973, having returned following the birth of her first child.

The 24-time Grand Slam champion also won clay-court titles in places such as London, Hilversum, and Bournemouth before her retirement in 1977.

2) Steffi Graf – 32 titles

A player who found huge success on all three surfaces, Graf is undoubtedly one of the greatest-ever clay courters, with an impressive 32 titles to her name.

Six of her 32 clay titles came at the French Open, winning the title in 1987, 1988, 1993, 1995, 1996, and 1999 – the latter proving to be the last of her 22 Grand Slam triumphs.

Outside of Paris, Graf won a staggering eight German Open titles in Berlin and was also a six-time champion at the Citizen Cup in Hamburg, among other triumphs.

1) Chris Evert – 70 titles

Well out in front at the top of the all-time standings is Evert, who won an incredible 70 titles on the dirt during her career – a record that will surely never be broken.

The highlight of Evert’s clay-court exploits is surely her seven French Open triumphs (1974-75, 1979-80, 1983, 1985-86), which is an Open Era record in the women’s singles event, while she won three of her US Open titles on the surface.

Evert also holds an Open Era record of five titles at the Italian Open and won a staggering eight titles across Hilton Head/Amelia Island across the 1970s and 1980s, and three further separate Amelia Island titles from 1981-83.

She also once won 125 straight matches across the surface.

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