Andy Parker wrote:

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Grand Slam Stat

Margaret Court - 24 singles titles, 19 doubles and 19 mixed doubles - overall 62 titles, with a singles win percentage of 91% - 11% higher than the next player.
Steffi Graf - 22 singles titles, 1 doubles, no mixed doubles - overall 23 titles
Martina Navratilove - 18 singles titles, 31 doubles and ten mixed doubles - 59 titles
Maria Bueno - 7 singles titles, 11 doubles and one mixed doubles - 19 titles.

For me Court as a player is head and shoulders over everyone else.

I went to the street in Albury where she was brought up on Australia - they regard it as slum housing and her house was pulled down, but another of the same type still survives - all 4 rooms and a verandah, where she would knock tennis balls against, before she got older and crept under the fence of the nearby tennis club to play, as she couldn't afford to join; her Dad was an alcoholic factory worker. It is easy to knock her for her views, but her background and story are not those of typical tennis players - like Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova, she emerged from poverty and hardship, and I am sad she has done so badly in this poll. It must be based on her homophobia, which although I don't support, is irrelevant to how good she was as a player.

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 Hi Andy - I think it is worth noting that Court has reached the final here and won through two rounds to get into the final 4, so whichever way you look at it , she is rated highly by the board, even if it isnt to be the "greatest". 

Your stats also set out well the stellar career Steffi and Martina had. Womens tennis went through a transformation in the late 70's and 80's, as Martina dominated, where it became in the USA (at least) the top womens sport, with the Avon/Virginia Slims Circuits really bringing it to the fore. Through the 60's and 70's, the French Open and other European events gave the women scant regard and put them on back courts, even for semis and quarters and the like. A lot of the top women therefore didnt play Paris every year (Sue Barkers win in 1976 came with a lot of players missing) and Australia had poorer quality entries. So, when you stack up things like slam titles, which include mixed doubles which Steffi didnt bother with and Martina less so as her career moved on, and you also factor in the depth of entries, Margarets record, whilst impressive, doesnt really outrank Steffi and Martina. 

So, without factoring in personality likes and dislikes, I think putting Steffi and Martina 1 and 2 in this list is easily justifiable. I think it is less easy to build a case for Maria but the nature of these polls is that if 1 or 2 voters really like someone, they can get enough votes to look dis proportionally high - if the poll allowed us to rank players 4,3 2,1 I suspect Margaret would have got a lot more "points" and ended up in 3rd place. 

It is clear she had an amazing career, like her or loathe her, and on record alone (which I tried to ask folks to focus on in my opening post in this process) she probably does deserve that 3rd place. 

Serena, on the other hand, I think should have made the final and been in the top 4, and clearly didnt. I do think, in her case, people dislike the personality and thus vote against her - it has been proven across a number of polls now; similarly in the mens, Novak and Rafa often dont get much credit and that can be put down to personality. We cant stop people taking that into account, for better or worse, it is part of who they are and , thus, how we perceive them.