Fairways and Forehands 2014 Top 25 WTA and LPGA Year In Review: #19 Jelena Jankovic and Angela Stanford

Jelena Jankovic (click to enlarge)

Like 2013, this year I will do a countdown of the top money list leaders from both the WTA and LPGA. Last year I did the top 30, but this year I will do the top 25. Note that as of this post, the retired Li Na has been removed from the WTA website money list rankings, but I will include her here. Thus, some WTA players will be off by one position on my list compared to the WTA website list. Also, Hyo Joo Kim is not on my LPGA list due to not being a member this year. I’m certain she will be on the list in the future. For the WTA, singles, doubles and mixed are combined for this top 25. Number 19 on this money list for each tour are Jelena Jankovic (WTA) and Angela Stanford (LPGA).

JELENA JANKOVIC (Serbia)

2014 Official WTA Prize Money: $1,509,514

Best Results: RUNNER-UP Copa Colsanitas; SF Brisbane International, Qatar Total Open, Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, Internazionali BNL d’Italia; QF Western & Southern Open, QF Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship, QF BNP Paribas Open, Family Circle Cup

Social Media: Facebook, Twitter

Jelena Jankovic, a former world #1 who had a bit of a dropoff a few years ago, bounced back in 2013 with much improved play and results. Jeca continued to perform well the first half of 2014 with a runner-up at Copa Colsanitas, 4 semifinals and 4 quarterfinals. However, after her quarterfinals appearance in Cincinnati at the Western & Southern Open, things went a bit sideways. After making the round of 16 at the US Open, she never won more than 1 match at any tournament the rest of the year. In some of them, she lost her first match. She had back problems, which caused a match retirement in Wuhan. Hopefully, she will be physically fit and ready to go starting 2015. Because she played very well early in 2014, despite not winning an event, JJ will have a lot of points to defend. To get back to the top 10, she will need to at least match those performances, and possibly exceed them.

Angela Stanford (click to enlarge)

ANGELA STANFORD (United States)

2014 Official LPGA Prize Money: $754,728

Best Result: 2nd LPGA Lotte Championship, T2 Walmart NW Arkansas Championship, T5 Ricoh Women’s British Open, T7 Kraft Nabisco Championship, T4 HSBC Women’s Champions, T9 Lorena Ochoa Invitational

Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, Website

She might not always receive the headlines that some of her peer get, but Angela Stanford has set a terrific standard for herself and maintained it for years. She has not finished outside the top 20 on the LPGA Money List since 2006…and she was an impressive 23rd that year. Also since 2006, Angela has been outside of the top 20 in scoring average only twice…and again with impressive 21st and 29th place finishes. Like the Energizer Bunny, Stanford just keeps going and going and going. 2014 saw two more top 10s at Majors, the Kraft Nabisco Championship and Ricoh Women’s Open. She had runner-up finishes at Lotte and NW Arkansas. And she even threw out the first pitch at a Texas Rangers game! Having finished her 14th year on tour at the age of 37 I see no diminution of ability in her results. Obviously, she’d probably like to turn those runners-up finishes into wins, but other than that it seems like there is no reason to believe to believe 2015 won’t be another year with Angela among the top 20 best players in the world.

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JELENA JANKOVIC