Margaret Court lays into Serena Williams over Grand Slam record
Serena Williams has widely been lauded as the GOAT of tennis but the woman who holds the Grand Slam titles record has weighed in.
Margaret Court has told of her disappointment that retiring star Serena Williams has not shown any admiration for her achievements — including that she had successfully returned to tennis to win three Grand Slam titles after having her first child.
Williams bowed out of the sport, one title short of Court’s all time record of 24, but that didn’t stop the partisan US Open officials from proclaiming Williams as the “greatest of all time” in repeated sentimental reflections of her career.
In a rare interview, conducted with the Telegraph UK, Court, who dominated the game through the 1960s and 1970s countered: “Serena, I’ve admired her as a player, but I don’t think she has ever admired me.”
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Court said she was ignored at this year’s Wimbledon. “I was at Wimbledon this year and nobody even spoke to me. So I thought, ‘Ah, that’s interesting.”.
She told the paper: “It’s very sad, because a lot of the press and television today, particularly in tennis, don’t want to mention my name.
“It’s only when they have to, because I still hold so many records. In 2020, I was meant to be coming to Wimbledon for the 50th anniversary of my calendar grand slam. But then Covid hit, so the honour never happened. The French Open didn’t invite me, the US Open didn’t invite me. Rod Laver had won the slam and I was going to be honoured in the same way, but no. I didn’t lose any sleep over it. But the honour has not been there for what I did do. In my own nation, I have been given titles, but they would still rather not mention me.”
Feeling cast out by the sport, Court has some empathy for Novak Djokovic who was ostracised by Australia and sent home in January by the immigration Minister amid fears he would incite anti-vaccination sentiment.
She told The Telegraph: “Sometimes in life, some people think one way and some think the other way. Well, that’s all right. With Covid, it’s the same thing. Some people chose to get the vaccination and some didn’t. That’s what life is all about.”
Court, now 80, won 24 major singles titles in a total of 64 major titles including double and mixed doubles, a dominance that no one has come close to eclipsing.
She revealed she has been subject to “a lot of bullying” because of being a Christian Minister in Perth and for making a stand for her beliefs, which included being against same-sex marriage.
She said: “I have had a lot of bullying. But we should be able to say what we believe. I’ve got nothing against anybody. I respect everybody, I minister to everybody. I love the game still. I teach a lot of young people today, and I use illustrations from tennis about the discipline, the commitment, the focus. Sport brings so much to your life.”
While much has been made of William’s continued tennis stardom after motherhood – she had daughter Olympia in 2017 – Court, as well as another Australian tennis legend, Evonne Goolagong-Cawley, also came back from having had a child to win Grand Slam singles titles. In Court’s case, she won the 1973 US Open, the French Open and the Australian Open a year after her first child.
“Serena has played seven years more than I did,” Court noted.
“I finished in my early 30s. People forget that I took two years out. I first retired, like Ash Barty, when I was 25, thinking I would never return to tennis. I got married, had a baby, but then had one of my best years, winning 24 out of 25 tournaments,” she said.
Many tennis commentators have parroted one of Court’s contemporaries, Billie Jean King, in dismissing the Australian’s achievements in the pre-Open era as being minor league.
Other analysts have tried to justify William’s greatest of all time tag, by ridiculing the competition back in Court’s era of 1960 to 1973.
But Mrs Court said: “I won 11 Australian Opens. I often hear Billie Jean saying that people didn’t come down to Australia in my early years. But Maria Bueno, the world No 1, came down. So did Christine Truman, Ann Haydon, Darlene Hard. Plus, Australia had some wonderful players. We had five girls in the top 10. Lesley Bowrey won two French Opens.”
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