Elena Sergeevna Baltacha was a Ukrainian-born British professional tennis player. Being a four-time winner of the AEGON Awards, she was also a long-term British No. 1, a position she held intermittently from 2002 to 2012. However, as a result of her absence from competition due to knee surgery, she dropped down the world rankings and at the time of her retirement on 18 November 2013, she was ranked as the world No. 221 and British No. 6. Her career-high ranking of world No. 49 was achieved in September 2010.

Li Na is a Chinese former professional tennis player. She achieved a career-high WTA ranking of world No. 2. Over the course of her career, Li won nine singles titles including two Grand Slam titles at the 2011 French Open and 2014 Australian Open. Those victories made her the first Grand Slam singles champion from Asia, male or female. She also became the first player representing an Asian country to appear in a Grand Slam singles final, finishing as the runner-up at the 2011 Australian Open. Li was also the runner-up at the 2013 Australian Open and 2013 WTA Tour Championships, a three-time quarterfinalist at Wimbledon and a semifinalist at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2013 US Open. Among her other most notable achievements, she was the first Chinese player to win a WTA Tour title at the Guangzhou International Women's Open in 2004, the first to reach a Grand Slam singles quarterfinal at the 2006 Wimbledon Championships, and the first to break into the world's top ten.