If you are following the 2025 edition of The Championships, you probably already know Martina Navratilova holds the record with nine Wimbledon women’s singles titles.
But did she have the most dominant run overall? You likely won’t be shocked to learn Navratilova tops our list of the six (spoiler alert: one entry is a tie) most dominant single-year Wimbledon title runs.
You might, however, be surprised to learn which of Navratilova’s nine championship performances tops our list.
Who were the six most dominant Wimbledon women’s champions?
A few ground rules: Players could only make the list once. Our main criteria are the fewest sets lost, the fewest “overtime” sets (needing to win seven or more games to win a set), and the highest percentage of total games won. If a player competed before the Open era, they had to be really dominant to make the list.
These five players emerged as the cream of the crop.
No. 6 – Serena Williams, 2010
Williams’s performance at the All-England Club in 2010 is the most impressive of the 2000s. Williams didn’t drop a set and won 68.2 percent of her games – the best percentage this century for a women’s champion who didn’t lose a set.
Williams cooked up three bagels in the first three rounds, then later survived tiebreakers in the fourth round against past Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova and the semifinals against future Wimbledon winner Petra Kvitova
No. 5 – Alice Marble, 1939 and Pauline Betz, 1946 (tie!)
Marble and Betz bookended the Wimbledons held immediately before and immediately after World War II with near-identical performances. Both won all six of their matches without losing a set to win their first and only Wimbledon titles.
Neither needed to win more than six games in any set. Betz won 72 of 92 games for a 78.3 percentage. Marble lost one more game, but won three of her four sets in the semifinals and finals by a score of 6-0.
No. 3 – Chris Evert, 1981
Evert is better known for her career-long dominance on clay, but for two weeks in 1981, she was untouchable on grass. She won all 12 of her sets and was pushed past needing to win six games in a set just once, in the third round.
She didn’t lose more than three games in any other set, including a 6-2, 6-2 romp in the final against Hana Mandlikova, who herself was at the top of her game after winning the previous two majors.
No. 2 – Suzanne Lenglen, 1925
The Wimbledon women’s champion won the tournament without needing to win more than six games in a set on seven occasions before World War II. The most dominant of these runs was Suzanne Lenglen’s performance in 1925.
Lenglen lost just five games in five matches on her way to her sixth and final Wimbledon crown. That’s an unthinkable 92.3 percent of games won and an average match score of 6-1, 6-0.
No. 1 – Martina Navratilova, 1983 or 1990
We couldn’t pick just one!
Navratilova was at the peak of her powers in 1983, when she won 77.3 percent of her games en route to her fourth Wimbledon title. That’s the best percentage of games won by a women's champion in the Open Era. She won eight of her 12 sets by scores of 6-0 or 6-1, including a bagel served up to Andrea Jager in the first set of the final.
Navratilova might have been past her apex in 1990. However, her path that year to her record-setting ninth Wimbledon title was the first – and still the only – time that a women’s champion won seven Wimbledon matches without being extended to a 7-5 set or a tiebreaker.
Navratilova won seven of her 12 sets in 1990 by a score of 6-1, including the second set in the championship round against Zina Garrison.