The 1979 WTA Tour consisted of a number of tennis tournaments for female tennis players. It was composed of the newly streamlined version of the Avon Championships and the Colgate Series. The year 1979 also saw the creation of the first official ranking system and these rankings were used to determine acceptance into the tournaments.

Martina Navratilova is a Czech-American former professional tennis player. Widely considered among the greatest tennis players of all time, Navratilova won 18 major singles titles, 31 major women's doubles titles, and 10 major mixed doubles titles, for a combined total of 59 major titles, the most in the Open Era. Alongside Chris Evert, her greatest rival, Navratilova dominated women's tennis for much of the 1970s and 1980s.