The Women's Tennis Association (WTA), founded in 1973 by Billie Jean King, is the principal organizing body of Women's Professional Tennis. It governs the WTA Tour which is the worldwide professional tennis tour for women. Its counterpart organization in the men's professional game is the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). Jerry Diamond of San Francisco became Executive Director of the WTA in 1974 and remained until 1985. He is considered the creator the Women's Point System for ranking players.

The Women's Tennis Association can trace its origins back to Houston, Texas with the inaugural Virginia Slims tournament, arranged by Gladys Heldman, and held on 23 September 1970. Rosie Casals won this first event. The WTA's corporate headquarters is in St. Petersburg, Florida. The European headquarters is in London, and the Asia-Pacific headquarters is in Beijing.

The Open Era began in 1968. The first open tournament was the British Hard Court Championships in Bournemouth. At the first Open Wimbledon the prize fund difference was 2.5:1 in favour of men. Billie Jean King won £750 for taking the title while Rod Laver won £2,000. The total purses of both competitions were 14,800 for men and 5,680 for women. Confusion also reigned as no one knew how many open tournaments there were supposed to be. The tournaments who did not want to provide prize money eventually faded out of the calendar, including the Eastern Grass Court circuit with stops at Merion Cricket Club and Essex county club.

Venus Ebony Starr Williams (born June 17, 1980), is an American professional tennis player who is a former World No. 1 and is ranked World No. 53 as of May 28, 2012 in singles. She has been ranked World No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association on three separate occasions. She became the World No. 1 for the first time on February 25, 2002, becoming the first black woman to achieve this feat during the Open Era.

Her 21 Grand Slam titles ties her for twelfth on the all time list and is more than any other active female player except for her younger sister Serena Williams. Venus Williams' titles consist of: seven in singles, twelve in women's doubles, and two in mixed doubles. Those seven Grand Slam singles titles ties her with four other women for twelfth place on the all-time list. Her five Wimbledon singles titles ties her with two other women for eighth place on the all-time list. Venus Williams is one of only three women in the open era to have won five or more Wimbledon singles titles. From the 2000 Wimbledon Championships through the 2001 US Open, Williams won four of the six Grand Slam singles tournaments held. She is one of only five women in the open era to win 200 or more main draw Grand Slam singles matches.

Alizé Cornet (born 22 January 1990) is a French professional tennis player and the current French number three (Behind Marion Bartoli and Aravane Rezaï). She was born in Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, and has a career-high ranking of No. 11, achieved on 16 February 2009. Cornet also has an extensive juniors record, winning the 2007 Girls' Singles at Roland Garros. She has won 1 WTA title.

She made her Grand Slam debut at the French Open in 2005 and made it to the second round, where she lost to Amélie Mauresmo. In 2006, she reached the second round again by beating Virginia Ruano Pascual of Spain in the first round. She could not repeat this performance in 2007, as she lost in the first round to Venus Williams 6–4, 6–3. Cornet was defeated in the Wimbledon 2007 qualifying event by Olga Govortsova 7–6, 3–6, 6–4, but made it to the main draw as a lucky loser when Li Na of China withdrew. Cornet reached the second round before being defeated by the experienced Ai Sugiyama 4–6, 6–0, 6–3. Also in 2007, she won a $50000 ITF tournament in Dnipropetrovsk, beating Stefanie Vögele 6–4, 6–3 in the final. In the 2007 US Open, Cornet lost to Jelena Janković in the 3rd round 4–6 6–2 6–3.

Serena Jameka Williams (born September 26, 1981) is an American professional tennis player and a former world no. 1. The Women's Tennis Association has ranked her world no. 1 in singles on five separate occasions. She became the world no. 1 for the first time on July 8, 2002 and regained this ranking for the fifth time on November 2, 2009. She is the only female player to have won over $35 million in prize money.

Her 27 Grand Slam titles places her ninth on the all-time list: 13 in singles, 12 in women's doubles, and 2 in mixed doubles. She is the most recent player, male or female, to have held all four Grand Slam singles titles simultaneously and only the fifth woman in history to do so. She was also the first woman, along with sister Venus Williams, to hold all four Grand Slam doubles titles simultaneously since Martina Hingis did so in 1998. Her 13 Grand Slam singles titles is sixth on the all-time list. Williams ranks fourth in Grand Slam women's singles titles won during the open era, behind Steffi Graf (22 titles) and Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova (18 titles each). She has won more Major titles in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles than any other active player, male or female.

Simona Halep (born September 27, 1991) is a world top-50 tennis player playing on the ITF Women's Circuit and the WTA Tour, and is currently the number-two ranked women's tennis player in Romania, behind Monica Niculescu (out of 6 in the top-100).

Halep's father Stere runs a cheese and milk factory. She started playing tennis at age four, in emulation of her older brother. She has self-described her playing style as being "an aggressive baseliner," while New York Times columnist Michael Kimmelman described her as "a scrappy player from Romania, short but with potent ground strokes and a scrambler’s talent." In a post-match interview Serena Williams once commented that Halep "serves well [for] her height... She has so much power on her serve."

She started the year with a final in Nottinghill, losing to Arantxa Rus, then defeated Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the quarterfinals at the Australian Open Junior Championships, before losing in the semifinal to Jessica Moore.

At the ITF $50,000 tournament in Bucharest, Halep eliminated former Roland Garros semi-finalist Sesil Karatantcheva in the first round, before losing in the quarterfinals to Sorana Cîrstea in three sets, 6–3, 3–6, 1–6.