6. Claudine Schaul
Schaul is one of the many players that failed to make their mark on the tour, and will eventually be forgotten. The Luxembourgian peaked at No. 41 in singles in 2004. In 2005, Schaul started to decline, and by the end of the year she was playing the majority of her tournaments on the ITF circuit. Despite her game getting worse and worse, Schaul didn’t retire from tennis until 2013, at the age of 30. 2005 was the year when Schaul got her most significant win, and that was over one of the greatest of all time, Martina Navratilova. Granted, Navratilova was 48-years-old and at that point a doubles specialist, just testing if she is still good enough for the main tour. The match took place in the first round of S-Hertogenbosch. 22-year old Schaul was in the middle of a disappointing season, ranked 162 at the time. Her opponent was unranked Navratilova, granted entry with a wild card. The veteran player took the first set 6-4, but Schaul put away Navratilova 4-6 6-1 6-4, and Martina never played singles again. Navratilova played her final doubles tournament in September 2006. Even though she was just a couple of months shy of being 50 years old, she still defeated players Ana Ivanovic, Maria Kirilenko and Michaella Krajicek.
