page_title: 2005 WTA Tour
section_title: Singles
hierarchical_section_title: 2005 WTA Tour / Season summary / Singles
context_page_description: The 2005 WTA Tour was the elite professional tennis circuit organized by the Women's Tennis Association for the 2005 tennis season. The 2005 WTA Tour included the four Grand Slam tournaments, the WTA Tour Championships and the WTA Tier I, Tier II, Tier III, Tier IV and Tier V events. ITF tournaments were not part of the WTA Tour, although they award points for the WTA World Ranking.
context_section_description: Going into 2005, Lindsay Davenport was holding the No. 1 ranking and therefore was the top seed at the year's first Grand Slam, the Australian Open. She reached the final for the first time since she won the event in 2000, coming back against Alicia Molik in the quarterfinals and Nathalie Dechy in the semifinals. Molik had a successful warm-up by winning the tournament in Sydney. Meanwhile, Serena Williams came through in the bottom half, beating Amélie Mauresmo and Maria Sharapova. In the final, Williams won her seventh Grand Slam title, and first since Wimbledon 2003. Justine Henin-Hardenne and Kim Clijsters both continued to struggle with injuries and skipped the event.
  The following week, Sharapova won the event in Tokyo, beating Davenport in the final. Moving into February, Mauresmo proved strong, winning in Antwerp and reaching the Paris final before losing to Dinara Safina. Sharapova also won the event in Doha, with Davenport winning in Dubai. Molik reached the semifinals of Antwerp and the final of Doha to continue her strong start to the season. Clijsters returned to competition in Antwerp, losing to Venus Williams.
  Clijsters then won 14 straight matches to take back-to-back titles in Indian Wells and Miami. In the former, she beat Davenport (who had defeated Maria Sharapova 6–0, 6–0 in the semi-finals) in the final. In the latter, she beat Sharapova in the final. Clijsters was only the second woman to achieve the feat of winning both tournaments, after Steffi Graf in 1996.
  Henin-Hardenne returned to competitive tennis in Miami, where she lost to Sharapova, but she then went on to dominate the clay season, winning events in Charleston, Warsaw and Berlin and building a 17-match winning streak. In the other big clay tournament in Rome, Mauresmo came out as the champion. Also enjoying good results in the clay season were Nadia Petrova, who reached the final of Berlin and the semifinals of Amelia Island and Patty Schnyder, who reached the semifinals of Berlin and Charleston, and the final of Rome. Davenport won the title in Amelia Island.
  As the favourite to win the French Open title, Henin-Hardenne reached the final, saving match points against Kuznetsova in the fourth round, before beating Sharapova in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals, she beat Petrova. On the top half of the draw, Mary Pierce moved through to her first Grand Slam final since 2000 by defeating Davenport in the quarterfinals and then Elena Likhovtseva in the semifinals. Henin-Hardenne eventually won her fourth Grand Slam title, beating Pierce with the loss of only two games.
  Wimbledon opened up with an early upset, as Henin-Hardenne became the first French Open champion to crash out in the first round, losing to Eleni Daniilidou, who brought an end to the Belgian's 24-match win streak. Australian Open champion Serena Williams also continued her struggles since that title, losing in the third round to Jill Craybas. In the semifinals, Venus Williams beat defending champion Sharapova, while Davenport moved past Mauresmo in a tight match. The final turned out to be the longest women's final in Wimbledon history, with Williams saving a match point before going on to win her third Wimbledon title, after 2000 and 2001.
  The summer hardcourt season saw a strong run from Kim Clijsters, who won titles in Stanford, Los Angeles and Toronto. Her only loss in the lead-up to the U.S. Open came against Peng Shuai in San Diego. In the absence of Clijsters, Mary Pierce won that event, beating Ai Sugiyama in the final. Lindsay Davenport took the title in New Haven, over Mauresmo in the final.
  Maria Sharapova became the first Russian, male or female, to be ranked World No. 1 by the WTA Tour; she claimed the ranking on 22 August, though Lindsay Davenport would reclaim the ranking the following week. Sharapova would herself recapture the top ranking following the US Open, despite losing in the semi-finals to Kim Clijsters. She would hold it until the end of the season, when again Davenport took over at the top.
  After a struggling season up until now, Svetlana Kuznets
caption: Justine Henin-Hardenne made a successful return from injury, winning the French Open.
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