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, continuing with number eight, a recent retiree with a record-high 1014 matches without a Grand Slam to her name.

#8 Jelena Jankovic (1014 matches – 63.5% winning record, 15 career titles, #1 career-high ranking)

A more recent retiree who hung up the racquet two-and-a-half years ago at the conclusion of the 2017 US Open, Jankovic made one Grand Slam final and five semi-finals during her career. Unlike the men where Marcelo Rios is the only world number one to never win a Grand Slam, there are a number of women who hold that unfortunate honour. Jankovic represented Serbia and retired relatively young given she was only 32 when she decided to give it away. The talented right-hander went out with 15 titles to her name, more than $19 million USD in prize money and a 63.5 per cent winning record off more than 1000 matches – holding the record for the most matches played without a Grand Slam title.

After winning her inaugural title in Budapest 2004, Jankovic had to wait three years for her next one that came at Auckland in 2007. It broke her streak of five consecutive finals without a win, and she went on to win three more titles that year including at Rome which was her biggest to-date. By 2008, Jankovic was in her peak, winning another four tournaments and made it to the final of the 2008 US Open, as well as in Miami as she was becoming a dominant player on tour. With 14 finals in those two years for eight titles, Jankovic was a deserving world number one, and had it not been for running into a red-hot Serena Williams in the final at Flushing Meadows in 2008, Jankovic might not have been eligible for this list. Aside from a shock loss to Tamarine Tanasugarn at Wimbledon, Jankovic also reached semi-finals at Melbourne Park and Roland Garros where she lost to top five players, Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic, but knocked off Williams in the quarters in Australia.

Despite looking like becoming a future Grand Slam winner, Jankovic never got to the heights of a Grand Slam final again, winning two more titles in 2009 and then the biggest of her career at Indian Wells in 2010. Then the Serb hit a roadblock and fell out of form, drifting outside the top 20 and not winning a title for three years until claiming Bogota in 2013. She only won two more titles after that – in 2015 – winning in Guangzhou and Hong Kong while coming runners-up in Indian Wells and then a year later in Guangzhou as she tried to defend it. Like a lot of others on this list, she is a Mixed Doubles Grand Slam champion, taking out Wimbledon in 2007 with Jamie Murray.

Unfortunately injuries ultimately set her back, with retirement contemplated as early as 2015 due to a pesky back injury, but she returned to perform strongly. She never quite got back to the heights she set a decade earlier though, and with recurring injuries, she eventually called it a day two years later, bowing out at the US Open with a first round loss to Petra Kvitova.

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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)