Susan Devoy
Michelle Martin
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Susan Devoy leads 3 of 4 categories. Our all-time ranking places Susan Devoy at #7 and Michelle Martin at #10.
The case for Susan Devoy
The player who held the women's game together between Heather McKay and the Australians, and one of the shortest, most concentrated great careers in the sport. Devoy won eight British Opens between 1984 and 1992, seven of them consecutively, and four World Opens in 1985, 1987, 1990 and 1992 — twelve majors in barely a decade. She was world number one for almost the entire stretch from 1984 to her retirement, which came at 28, immediately after winning both the British Open and the World Open in the same year, a departure at the absolute summit that is almost unheard of in professional sport. Her game was aggressive by the standards of the period, built on early volleying and a willingness to attack the front court rather than grind. She was later made a Dame and served as New Zealand's Race Relations Commissioner, and remains the country's most successful racket-sport athlete.
The case for Michelle Martin
The most decorated member of the most remarkable family in squash. Martin won three consecutive World Opens in 1993, 1994 and 1995 and six consecutive British Opens from 1993 to 1998, nine majors in six years of near-total control of the women's game between the Devoy and Fitz-Gerald eras. Her brothers were both world-class professionals: Rodney Martin won the 1991 World Open in Adelaide by beating Jahangir Khan in the semifinal and Jansher Khan in the final, the only man to defeat both at their peak in a single tournament, while Brett Martin also reached the world top five. Michelle's game was orthodox, powerful and relentlessly accurate, built on Australian coaching orthodoxy of hard length and early volleying, and she led Australia to repeated World Team Championship success. She is a rare case of a player whose peak was total but whose reputation has faded simply because it sat between two more famous eras.