Jessica Halloran: What more can Serena Williams do to cement her status as the greatest athlete in sporting history?
She might not be perfect, but Serena Williams is the greatest athlete of all time. As Jessica Halloran writes, it’s time her longevity and dominance were given the respect they deserve.
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Serena Williams is the greatest athlete ever.
For the past 23 years, she has dominated the brutal tennis tour, winning 23 grand slam titles and 14 doubles slams.
This week at the US Open we were reminded of Williams’ longevity when she eventually defeated American 15-year-old Cat McNally in the second round.
McNally wasn’t even born when Williams first started winning grand slam titles — her first was the US Open in 1999.
While names such as Don Bradman, Pele, Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt are regularly included the conversation on “lists” when the world’s greatest athletes are being discussed, Serena often slips by the wayside.
Are they forgetting her, not crediting her, because she is a woman? Probably.
To have annihilated most of her competition for over two decades must mean something.
You can’t forget she’s a four-time Olympian who has won four gold medals (three doubles and one singles).
A top men’s player at the US Open just ripped a towel out of a ball kid’s hands, threw his racquet toward the chair umpire, and flipped off the crowd. He’s yet to get a point penalty, and the announcers describe it as «drama.» Imagine if @serenawilliams did any of those things.
— Sam Spital (@SamSpital) August 31, 2019
What more do you want to cement her greatest athlete status? She is a modern-day sporting heroine. She is the greatest.
Yet instead of being celebrated as “the greatest”, she’s been the subject of recent poll that revealed one in eight men believe they could score a point in a tennis match against Williams. Ridiculous — the poll and those men.
Williams would wipe any male muppet off the court. She is so good that she became the oldest woman to win a grand slam singles title in the Open era at the age 35 — the Australian Open in 2017 — and adding to that, she was also eight weeks’ pregnant.
Then there’s the fact she almost died. Twice.
One in eight men (12%) say they could win a point in a game of tennis against 23 time grand slam winner Serena Williams https://t.co/q0eNBjn7Vu pic.twitter.com/3InBOWdYwh
— YouGov (@YouGov) July 12, 2019
She suffered from a pulmonary embolism that left her “on her deathbed” and she had to take a year off the tour over 2010 and 2011. She walked back in at No.175, but within 12 months she was world No.1 again. Unreal.
While giving birth to her daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr, she suffered complications and again “almost died”.
Williams was bedridden for six weeks because of a series of medical issues, including a pulmonary embolism that led to multiple surgeries after her daughter was delivered by an emergency caesarean.
Still, she came back to the court. And to come back from that, let alone just having a baby and returning to a professional sporting career, is insanely impressive.
She’s overcome adversity time and time again: be it injuries, racism and sexism. She has been criticised for her body, her clothes, her attitude, her aggression, her staunch opinion.
Williams been criticised more than any other female athlete in the world.
Still, she has risen up through the worst that life can bring, including overcoming the heart-wrenching grief after the shooting death of her sister Yetunde in 2003.
Back on the court, she plays with a brute, beautiful strength, with a game more powerful than any other woman’s to have played tennis. She has changed the sport. For the better. She’s an entertainer, she brings the people in.
For someone who has been competing professionally since she was 14, the Bell Challenge of Quebec was her first tournament. For a woman who has a 72 career titles, she shows no signs of fading.
And until she matches Margaret Court’s record of 24 titles or even betters it — it feels like she’s going to keep ripping up the tour.
Is she perfect? Oh no. Not at all. Last year’s US Open final outburst again showed off her volatile, angry streak. Who can forget her threatening to shove a ball down a lineswoman’s throat in 2009. But can we forgive her for it? I can.
Notably, her combustible side disappears when the battle is over. Williams has a reputation as one of the nicest athletes in the locker room — and the women’s tour has been known to have a stone-cold atmosphere.
When Sam Stosur defeated Williams in a US Open final in 2011, rather than wallow in the loss, the American soon sat down beside her to congratulate the Australian, saying; “How do you feel? Are you really excited?”
“It shows what a nice person she is and what a true champion she is of the sport,” Stosur said in 2011.
“To be able to separate the result a few minutes later and be able to come over and congratulate your opponent, I thought was pretty classy.”
Of course, there’s a constant whine that Williams doesn’t have any great rivals, but do people say that about Bradman? About Phelps? Bolt? Jordan? What does that matter? Can’t we just celebrate her for being streets ahead of her nearest rival.
People also seem to forget that Williams early in her career defeated some of the best women to have played the game, including Steffi Graf, Lindsay Davenport and later on Kim Clijsters. Her record against Maria Sharapova is obscene, 19 wins from their 21 encounters. This week she towelled her off Arthur Ashe Court 6-1 6-1 in 59 minutes.
But let’s not deflect to her competition — let’s focus on Williams’ ability.
A few years back at a press conference at Wimbledon, a reporter asked Williams how she felt about going down in the history books as “one of the greatest female athletes of all time”. She responded: “I prefer the words, ‘one of the greatest athletes of all time’.”
I think she can now say she is the greatest.