Serena Williams reaches 200 weeks as #1 but has a ways to go to be considered greatest ever

Serena Williams reached a significant milestone today: 200 weeks (overall) as the number one ranked female tennis player in the world.

And she does so a day after winning her fourth tournament of 2014 (in Stanford).

But she will have to win the US Open next month for the sixth time to really feel like the best this year because she failed to reach the quarterfinals of the first three majors this year.

A few years back, there was a rush to proclaim Serena the greatest of all time and I didn’t get it then and don’t get it now.

She still has a ways to go to be that.

By winning the US Open she would be tied with Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova with 18 majors but that’s still four fewer than Steffi Graf’s 22.

(Margaret Court won 24 but many of hers were won before the modern era which began in 1968. Also, Evert and Navratilova skipped three French Opens during their 1970s peaks because of World Team Tennis and many Australian Opens as well because it was considered a minor league grand slam at the time.)

Graf was number one for a record 377 weeks – more than three years longer that Serena at this point with Navratilova second with 332 weeks and Evert at third with 260 weeks. Martina Hingis is fourth with 209 weeks but Serena already has three times as many majors as her so that’s a hollow number.

Anyway, we shall see how Serena does in the end!