Women's Tennis Players with the Most Grand Slam Singles Titles

Margaret Court's 24 Grand Slam singles titles are the official record in women's tennis, a mark she built between 1960 and 1973 that still stands as the highest total in the sport's history, for either gender. But the number at the top of this list carries more context than most records of its kind: 11 of Court's 24 titles came at the Australian Open during a period when the tournament routinely drew weaker fields than the other three majors, a fact that is frequently discussed alongside her total rather than hidden from it.

Behind Court sits Serena Williams, whose 23 titles are the most won by any player, man or woman, within the modern Open era specifically. Steffi Graf follows with 22, including a calendar Golden Slam in 1988, and further back, Helen Wills Moody's 19 titles date to the 1920s and 1930s, entirely within the pre-Open era. Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova round out the top five, tied at 18 titles apiece, two players whose rivalry defined much of the late 1970s and 1980s.

How this ranking works

This ranking orders players by their total singles titles at the four Grand Slam tournaments — the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open — combined across their entire careers. The methodology includes both pre-Open-era titles, won before 1968, and Open-era titles won afterward, combining them into a single career total rather than tracking the two periods separately. Where players finish tied, as Evert and Navratilova do at 18 titles each, they share the same rank on this list.

How the record has moved across generations

Helen Wills Moody set an early benchmark with 19 titles won entirely in the pre-Open era, between 1923 and 1938, well before professional and amateur players were permitted to compete together at the majors. Decades later, Margaret Court surpassed that mark and kept winning, eventually reaching 24 titles by 1973 — a total built across both the amateur period and the early years of the Open era, which began in 1968. Court is also the only player, man or woman, to win the calendar-year Grand Slam more than once in singles, having done so in 1970.

The rivalry between Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova then defined the top of the sport through the late 1970s and 1980s, with both players finishing level at 18 titles. Steffi Graf followed, winning 22 titles between 1987 and 1999 and completing the rare calendar Golden Slam — all four majors plus Olympic gold — in a single season, 1988. Serena Williams then built the largest Open-era total in the sport's history, 23 titles won between 1999 and 2017, placing her second on this all-time list and ahead of every player other than Court.

Why the Australian Open context matters here

The most significant piece of context attached to this ranking concerns the composition of Margaret Court's total. Eleven of her 24 titles came at the Australian Open during the 1960s, a period when the tournament's geographic distance from Europe and the Americas meant that many of the era's top international players frequently skipped it, producing noticeably thinner draws than the other three majors offered in the same years. This is not a dispute over the official record — Court's 24 titles remain the recognized all-time mark — but it is a piece of context that tennis commentators and historians raise consistently alongside her total, and it's part of why Serena Williams's 23 Open-era titles are often cited separately as the benchmark for the modern game specifically.

Comparing eras honestly

Beyond the Australian Open question, this ranking spans more than a century of relative changes in women's tennis, from Helen Wills Moody's pre-Open-era run in the 1920s and 1930s to Serena Williams's career ending in 2017. The pre-Open era excluded professional players from competing in the Grand Slam tournaments, which shaped the competitive fields Wills Moody and the early portion of Court's career faced. The sport has also grown considerably in global reach and depth of competition since then, meaning that a title won in one decade is not automatically comparable in difficulty to a title won in another, even though this ranking's methodology counts them identically, as the official record books do.

Limitations and what remains settled

Unlike some all-time rankings in other sports, every entry on this particular list belongs to a retired player; none of the five names here is still actively adding to her total, so these totals are not subject to the kind of in-progress uncertainty that affects some other rankings on this site. The open question for this list is not whether any current total will keep rising, but how directly to weigh Court's record against the context of her Australian Open titles, and how to weigh Williams's Open-era total against the longer, mixed-era totals above her. Both figures are accurate as recorded; how a reader chooses to interpret them is a matter of ongoing discussion in the sport rather than a matter of disputed fact.

Sourcing and verification

This ranking draws on records maintained by the International Tennis Federation and the four Grand Slam tournaments themselves. The figures here were last verified as of early February 2026, and because every entry belongs to a retired player, none of these totals is expected to change before any future verification of this list.

Margaret Court's 24 titles remain the official record in women's tennis, a mark whose composition — and the Australian Open context behind a chunk of it — continues to shape how directly it gets compared to Serena Williams's Open-era total of 23. For the equivalent record in men's tennis, including an active player whose total may still be rising, see the Men's Most Grand Slam Titles ranking.