WITH no live tennis on currently due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, Draft Central will take a look back at some of the best players of past and present and rank them based on a specific set of guidelines. In our next Top 10 countdown, we look at the Top 10 WTA Players to never have won a Grand Slam title, starting off with a dual citizen who represented both Bulgaria and Switzerland.

#10 Manuela Maleeva (662 matches – 71.2% winning record, 19 career titles, #3 career-high ranking)

Kicking off our Top 10 countdown of the best WTA Players never to have won a Grand Slam is a dual citizen who represented both Bulgaria and Switzerland during her time. Manuela Maleeva turned professional in 1982, and within a couple of years had already won five titles across three continents. She made her first Grand Slam quarter final in 1984 at the age of 17, and reached the last eight in a major for the next seven consecutive years. Maleeva often performed strongest at Flushing Meadows, where she made back-to-back semi-finals in 1992-93, with a run of reaching the last 16 in nine consecutive US Open events beginning in 1986.

Maleeva might be the only one on this list that never reached a Grand Slam final, but her consistent performance across three of the four majors – she rarely played in Australia – helped her reach a career-high of third in the world. Maleeva represented Bulgaria in the Fed Cup and Olympics in the 1980s, where she reached semi-finals in 1985 and 1987 for the former, and a Bronze Medal at the 1988 Seoul games. She returned four years later, but this time representing Switzerland, though did not reach the same heights. She did win a Hopman Cup with Switzerland in 1992 however, teaming up with Jakob Hlasek.

Overall, Maleeva won a total of 19 career titles, but it was her 71.2 per cent winning rate that really stood out amongst players that failed to win majors. It could have been her lack of matches, playing just 662 and retiring in 1994 at the age of 27. She also reached number 11 in doubles, winning four WTA Tour titles, and in a funny quirk, won just the one career mixed doubles title which was the 1984 US Open, paired with Tom Gullikson. Having missed out on a major, Maleeva is still one of the few to represent two nations at different Olympic Games in the sport, and made the most of her short career.

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Top 10 WTA Players without a Grand Slam title:

#10 Manuela Maleeva (Bulgaria/Switzerland)