WTA Player of the Year 2008

[falafaclese]

Now that the year is officially over, I think it would be cool to get an idea of which woman everyone thinks had the most impressive year. Sort of our own power rankings. You can take into consideration actual rank, the number and/or quality of the titles won, win/loss percentage, who had the biggest impact on the tour, even who had the cutest outfit (okay maybe not that last one). Actually, take into consideration anything you like. Feel free to explain/discuss/argue too.

ETA: I decided to vote for Serena over Venus. Although it was a close contest for me, In addition to the fact that both have a grand slam title, almost identical performances in the Slams they didn't win, impressive big name titles, and impressive ranking gains, Serena managed to take the #1 ranking at least for a little while, and finished the year at a higher ranking than Venus. I think Jankovic comes in at #3 for me, but is only slightly ahead of Safina, who won the U.S. Open series , an Olympic silver medal, and I think had a bigger impact over the year, particularly early on when everyone was fresher.

[curlywhirly]

I think I'd give it to Venus, though not by much. For me its a close call between Venus and Serena. Each won a slam, won Wimby doubles and Olympic doubles, plus one other huge tournament (Miami for Serena, YEC for Venus). So I guess I rank YEC just a little higher than Miami, plus extra points for Venus just for ending the year so well because this is not the norm for her-- she usually peters out in the fall and almost never plays the YEC. Her only early loss at a slam this year was the French. She was more consistent this year than she has been since 2003.

I could see cases being made for Jankovic, but she still lacks a slam title. Ending the year #1 isn't as big a deal to me, especially since five other players held that rank at some point this year. Ivanovic won a slam, made a final and won Indian Wells, but completely wilted the second half of the year. So its Venus for me.

[skyz]

I've got to go with Venus here too. Mainly for all the reasons curlywhirly stated. She's had the momentum going into the fall and winning Zurich and now YEC she's had a pretty great year all things considered.

[falafaclese]

I realize that I forgot to include Sharapova. That wasn't an intentional exclusion. She deserves to be included, but I guess for our purposes she'll have to be an "other" since I can't go back and modify the poll.

[oopssorry]

Love that we're watching venus and serena carrying the torch for the year.