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, and a dual junior Grand Slam champion with high expectations comes in at number six.

#6 Agnieszka Radwanska (863 matches – 68.8% winning record, 20 career titles, #2 career-high ranking)

Professional players are always met with mixed receptions. Some are popular, some are less endearing to fans who can ‘love to hate’ competitors on tour. Radwanska definitely falls into the former, winning the WAT Tour’s Fan Favourite Singles Player for six consecutive seasons (2011-2016), the most titles on record. It is fair to say the Polish talent was well liked by those in the stands. Like many on this list, her career lasted just the 13 years, turning professional just after her 16th birthday, and then retiring at the age of 29 a couple of years ago. Her prize money of $27.6 million USD puts her in ninth on the all-time rankings and the unfortunate title of highest prize money without a Grand Slam.

She reached one final – Wimbledon in 2012 – and four semi-finals, which is less than a lot of others on this list. However she claimed 20 career titles and reached number two in the world following that Wimbledon final. She also won 68.8 per cent of her matches in a career that might not have been long, but it was memorable. The hype on Radwanska was always huge from her junior years, winning two Grand Slam titles as a 16 and then 17-year-old at Wimbledon and Roland Garros in 2005 and 2006. Her first ever senior WTA Tour tournament she stunned Russian and Grand Slam winner, world number 12 Anastasia Myskina on debut. Later in the year she would roll both Venus Williams and Elena Dementieva as a 17-year-old.

Radwanska would made her first senior Grand Slam quarter final in 2008 at the Australian Open and then again at Wimbledon. It came a year after her maiden singles title in Stockholm, and was joined by titles in Pattaya City, Istanbul and Eastbourne. She would win another six titles in 2011-12 after a dry spell in 2009-10. She still performed strongly on Tour though, reaching the top 10 in the world and staying there until the end of the year when a stress fracture in her foot forced her to finish her year at the China Open and she fell outside the top 10 again.

Her 2012 year was a memorable one, reaching the Wimbledon final and winning two titles prior to that run. Unfortunately she kept running into world number one Victoria Azarenka who she lost to six times in four months, an almost unheard of amount of clashes in such a short space of time. After winning the first set in the Wimbledon final, she went down to Serena Williams 1-6 7-5 6-2 to fall short of ultimate glory, but move up to number two in the world.

Radwanska would go on to win nine more titles for a total career tally of 20, including the 2015 WTA Finals. While she could have been a Grand Slam winner, another foot injury ended her 2017 year and eventually led to her retirement the year after in 2018. Along with her popularity, Radwanska won the WTA Tour’s Shot of the Year five times, the last coming in 2017 to mark just how skilful and determined she was at her craft.

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Top 10 WTA Players without a Grand Slam title:

#10 Manuela Maleeva (Bulgaria/Switzerland)
#9 Zina Garrison (USA)
#8 Jelena Jankovic (Serbia)
#7 Elena Dementieva (Russia)
#6 Agnieszka Radwanska (Poland)