Serena Williams won the French Open over the weekend. Did you notice?
Were you consumed with the NBA Finals? That’s fair, a lot of people were. American Pharoah’s Triple Crown win? Understandable. Were you focused on Novak Djokovic blowing his chance at finally winning the French with Rafael Nadal out of the picture? I get it.
But if you didn’t at least stop and take a second to appreciate what we’re witnessing in Serena Williams, you’re doing yourself an incredible disservice as a sports fan.
By claiming the championship at Roland Garros for the third time, Williams won her 20th Grand Slam title overall (while battling a flu bug)— good for second all-time in the Open Era (since 1968), trailing only Steffi Graf (22), and third all-time in general, trailing only Margaret Court (24) and Graf. Graf’s Open Era mark is tops all-time for both men’s and women’s tennis, but Serena is quickly closing in on that record.
Some six years ago, sportswriter Jason Whitlock — then of Fox Sports, currently of ESPN — was heavily critical of Serena just days after the younger Williams sister defeated her older sister Venus to win Wimbledon. The column has apparently been expunged from the internet (I checked), but the essence of it was as great as Serena is, she should be way better. If she shook off her own complacency, dropped a few pounds (booty included) and took tennis more seriously, she would already be nearing the aforementioned records held by Court and Graf. Whitlock wrote, “At age 27—the same age as (Roger) Federer—Serena owns just half as many major titles (11) as Steffi Graf, the greatest women’s player of all time.”
Well, things done changed.
Since ’09 Wimbledon, Williams has won nine more Grand Slam events to raise her singles total to 20, three more than Federer. That’s out of a possible 23 tournaments, or just a shade under 40% of all Grand Slams in that time. She’s tripled the amount of Grand Slam victories won by the next winningest player in that time frame (Kim Clijsters). Her nine Slams tops any male player since July of 2009. All this is a fancy way of saying Serena has torched the competition since that scathing piece was written.
Not only have we not heard a peep from Whitlock about it (this tweet is about as close as we’ll get), the collective sports world isn’t giving Serena her props.
Sidebar: The point here isn’t to criticize Whitlock. In fact, should we be thanking him? What if he did motivate Serena on some level? Even still, I feel way more comfortable giving Serena all the credit.
In 1999, ESPN listed their 100 greatest athletes of the 20th century. Michael Jordan was first, followed by Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown and Wayne Gretzky. The only woman in the top 10 was golf/track standout Babe Didrikson Zaharias. Only five women made the top 50, the rest were men (or horses…smh). Of those five, two were tennis players: Chris Evert (#50) and Martina Navratilova (#19). For perspective, Evert was ahead of such athletes as Pete Rose, Jerry West, Deion Sanders and Cy Young. Navratilova was ahead of each of those names, plus Sugar Ray Robinson, Joe Montana, Gordie Howe, Jerry Rice and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Serena Williams already has two more Grand Slam championships than both Evert and Navratilova, and probably would already have more if not for injuries. With her most recent triumph at the French, it seems abundantly clear Serena isn’t going anywhere either.
Everybody heaped praise upon Tiger Woods (rightfully so) for being a wildly successful Black male in a sport Black men had historically avoided like a camping trip. Woods was anointed the greatest golfer ever by some, despite being six majors behind Jack Nicklaus for first all-time. Unlike Woods, whose invincible aura and impeccable career has dissolved in his hands since 2009, Williams — a wildly successful Black female in a sport that was historically about as Black as the Republican National Convention — has only gotten stronger with age.
Serena’s first Major Grand Slam W was a long time ago.
At 33 — which in tennis years means she should’ve had her AARP card for at least three years already — she’s won the last three major championships. If she’s victorious at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open this summer, she will have completed her first ever “Serena Slam” (winning all four majors in one calendar year).
If Tiger’s career was never derailed and if he were sitting on say 18 majors right now, where would we hypothetically airdrop him into ESPN’s Sportscentury Top 100 list? Probably somewhere between Nicklaus (#9) and Arnold Palmer (#29), right? But closer to the former. Considering the longevity and dominance of Williams’ career — we’re now 16 years removed from her first major — she’s equal to, if not ahead of Martina Navratilova on the all-time female tennis player pantheon. Knowing this, if we’re playing the airdrop game with Serena, she has to slide in somewhere in the late teens, aka the Magic Johnson/Bill Russell/Ted Williams neighborhood.
If we’re tasked with remaking this list in 2015, there’s several other athletes from this century that are in the running for the top 25. But is Serena Williams ever gushed over in the same way the media gushes over other greats from team sports like Kobe, LeBron, Duncan, Brady, Jeter or Peyton Manning? Is she even valued in the same way as others legends in individual sports like Woods, Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps?
Judging off the sports world’s reaction this past weekend, the answer is no. Serena’s winning ways have become so commonplace, she can’t even get a slot on PTI.
Maybe it’s because she’s still the same dark skinned African-American female who came out rocking the beaded braids in the late ’90s that the tennis establishment wasn’t ready for and never truly accepted. Maybe it’s because she hit the crip walk after winning Wimbledon (again). Maybe it’s because she does have that booty that distracts men from recognizing her as the accomplished athlete she is. Maybe it’s because she dates rappers (which has gone so far as to start rap beefs!). Maybe it’s because she reps Compton, California. Maybe it’s because she and her older sister dominated the sport to the point that it made each of her peers resent their own genetic shortcomings. Or maybe it’s because once upon a time, she actually was bored with tennis, only now we’re the ones bored with her supremacy.
Whatever the cause, the lack of appreciation for what this woman is doing can only be be described as unfortunate. Because quiet as kept, she’s become one of the great…GREAT…athletes in sports history.
Serena Williams won the French Open over the weekend. We all should take notice.