In Part 1 of our feature on slamless number ones we closely analyzed the years in which players reached No.1 ranking without winning a Grand Slam title and the five such players are the likes of Kim Clijsters, Amelie Mauresmo, Jelena Jankovic, Dinara Safina and Caroline Wozniacki (the first two won Grand Slam titles later in their careers). This Part 2 will focus on Martina Hingis and Lindsay Davenport – players who had years in their careers that they finished on top of the rankings without claiming a single Grand Slam title during that season – so they could theoretically be called slamless No.1s, even though they had won Grand Slams in the previous years, because in some years they were ranked No.1 they had no majors won. If these two analyses don't stop all the fuss about the recent "shameful" slamless No.1s I don't know what will! Omair, bring on the numbers!

We have talked a lot about the spot being held by Caroline Wozniacki, Dinara Safina and Jelena Jankovic and discussed about whether their reign at the top was (is, in case of Wozinacki) fair or not. How did they end up being at the top of rankings without winning a major first? We did not appreciate their consistency throughout the year, tournament in, tournament out, what we did was only criticize them about being the slamless No.1s. I guess that's enough of it, let's move on to something I wanted to share with you guys. The other day I was going through the Tennis.com forums and there I saw that during the past 11 years, i.e. from the beginning of the 20th century, seven times a player has ended the year as No.1 and she did not win a single Grand Slam during the year. Here is the list of year-end No.1 players from 2000 onwards.

Martina Hingis, though she had won Grand Slams before 2000, did not end up winning a single major in 2000 and despite that she ended the year as world No.1. Lindsay Davenport had also won Grand Slams before 2001 but she did not win a single major in 2001, 2004 and 2005 and despite that she ended the years as No.1.

These two players did clinch the top spot without winning a major during that year, yet they have never been criticized for this achievement like Jelena Jankovic, Dinara Safina and Caroline Wozniacki. Some people argue that they did not win a major during that year but they had won it before that year, which to me is not a very strong logic. I think that these two players were not criticized because by winning a Grand Slam these two players had demonstrated their ability to win majors and hence put the critics to the silent mode.

In our Part 1 we had focused on the years of Clijsters, Mauresmo, Jankovic, Safina and Wozniacki, let's now have a look at how well Hingis and Davenport performed in the years they earned the top spot without winning a major. We won't include the stats of slamless year-end No.1s Jankovic and Wozniacki because we had already included them in our Part 1. Hope you people enjoy it

Read more »

Thanks to Jim from KEF Media I had another opportunity to interview Lindsay Davenport, even though I was on vacation at the time. I prepared some questions and Jim forwarded one of them to Lindsay and added one question of his own.

My question was the following: "Kim Clijsters had a historic victory last year at the US Open, what do you think her prospects are this time?" The other question is regarding the importance of the US Open Series in getting players ready for the US Open. Listen to what Lindsay had to say.

Once again, thanks Lindsay and Jim for cooperating with me!

I had a short telephone interview with former world No.1 and three-time Grand Slam champion Lindsay Davenport last week. The topic was the Tennis Night in America, the sport's largest youth recruitment effort, which culminated on March 1 when the best stars in tennis competed for the Billie Jean King Cup at the Madison Square Garden.

I know that many of you have eagerly been awaiting the interview, and here it is. My voice is not very clear, probably because I was calling from afar, but anyway, the focus is on Lindsay. I asked her about the main objective of Youth Registration events and Tennis Night in America, why she would suggest people to join, and about her opinion on the general state of women’s tennis in the US. Also, as promised, I asked Lindsay about the way players are selected for the BNP Paribas Showdown, as we are having a discussion here on Women's Tennis Blog whether the criterion is the player’s number of Grand Slam titles,  year-end No.1 ranking, popularity, or possibly something else.

Thank you, Lindsay, for taking your time to talk to me, Jim from KEF Media Associates, thank you for organizing the interview. I hope we'll have more opportunities like this one.

Lindsay Davenport’s two-year-old son Jagger got a sister as the tennis star gave birth to a baby girl on Saturday June 27. Little Lauren Andrus Davenport Leach was born at 11:04 in Newport Beach, California.

The former world number one returned to competitive tennis only three months after the birth of Jagger, and her comeback was more than successful since she won three of the first four tournaments she entered.

Davanport hasn’t played competitive tennis since the 2008 US Open, and there is still no news whether the 33-year-old mother of two will revive her career again. (source: Reuters, photo: Getty Images)

Just days after we learnt that Lindsay Davenport would compete at the 2009 Australian Open, the news comes out that the American is pregnant with second child, and is therefore setting her career aside.

"Of course this unexpected but exciting surprise now means I will be putting tennis on hold for the foreseeable future," Davenport said in a statement issued Wednesday by her agent.

Davenport has a son, Jagger, who was born in June 2007. The three-time Grand Slam singles champion and former world number one then returned to the tour and added another four titles to her resume. (source: ESPN, photo: Getty Images)