Serena Williams, the 23 times Grand Slam winner’s last competitive match, was at the 2021 Wimbledon Championship, where she had to withdraw due to an ankle injury. Despite her absence from the tennis scene a year ago, media commentators invoke her name to compare her with active players. However, unlike Roger Federer, who’s also been inactive, Serena Williams name is not invoked as a testament to her greatness but as a comparative tool to diminish her greatness. Without a doubt, Serena Williams is the most exceptional person to have ever held a racquet irrespective of gender. The evidence is clear: 23 Grand Slam singles titles, 4 Olympic Gold medals, 14 Grand Slam double titles, the greatest serve in tennis history and domination of her peers in three different decades. However, while Serena has not announced her official retirement, the move to downplay her accomplishment is already in full force during her hiatus from the sports.
Throughout her career, tennis pundits have used other tennis players’ records as milestones to diminish Serena’s greatness. Each time the goalposts have shifted, Serena has scaled the goalpost, thus leaving the pundits scrambling for other irrelevant records. After winning her 16th Grand Slam title at the 2013 French Open, Christie Evert and Martina Navratilova’s 18 Grand Slam haul became the golden standard for tennis excellence. However, Serena had other ideas as she equalled the benchmark the following year with her victory at the 2014 US Open. Up next, Steffi Graf’s 22 Grand Slam title became the new benchmark to downplay Serena’s greatness. At the 2016 Wimbledon Championship, Serena smashed Graf’s record to sit on top of the tennis league table. However, the tennis pundits had other ideas and, through a strange formula, cited Margaret Court’s 24 Grand Slam titles as the new golden standard in tennis. Before Serena reached 23 Grand Slam titles, commentators ignored Court’s record, achieved before the commencement of the Open-Era. Margaret Court won 11 of her 24 titles at what could be described as a National Australian Open Championship, where on average, only 15% of the players were non-Australians.
Since Serena’s absence, tennis pundits have changed tactics. They are transitioning from using Maragert Courts’ 24 Grand Slam to using trending players’ records as a basis to deny Serena her place on the Mount Rushmore of tennis. The recently concluded French Open is a classic case study of this emerging trend.
Shortly after Ashley Barty retired from tennis, Iga Swiatek, the Polish tennis ace, took her place as the Number 1 seeded player on the WTA tour. Swiatek went to the French Open as the clear favourite on the back of 28 consecutive match wins, and five tournament wins. As she scaled the first couple of matches at the French Open, the talk became about whether she would equal Serena Williams and Venus Williams run of 34 and 35 consecutive wins, which commentators claimed was the longest winning streak in the 21st century. Amy Woodyatt of the CNN wrote an article captioned “Iga Swiatek: The 21-year-old who could break Serena Williams’ record winning streak.” After Swiatek defeated Coco Gauff to capture her second Grand Slam title, one would have thought she defeated Serena Williams in the final. Tennis World’s headline was, “Iga Swiatek OVERCOMES Serena Williams in a special data!” Yahoo Sports Australia showed an image of Serena and Swaitek with a heading, “Iga Swaitek takes down Serena Williams after French Open triumph.” From the moment Swaitek reached the French Open semi-finals to the tournament’s conclusion, Serena Williams started trending on Twitter as pundits kept referencing Swaitek to Serena even though Serena did not participate in the tournament.
Just as tennis commentators used Margaret Court’s 24 Grand Slams to showcase why Serena is not the #GOAT, history is repeating itself today. But should there be much ado about Swaitek exceeding Serena’s winning streak? Not really. One would have thought that Serena’s 34 consecutive wins were the golden standard in women’s tennis, but it is not. Her winning streak is not even within the top 10 longest winning streaks. If one examines the longest winning streak in women’s tennis, one will realise that honour belongs to Martina Navratilova, who won 74 consecutive matches between 1983 and 1984. Steffi Graf won 66 successive matches between 1989 and 1989, while Christie Evert won 55 straight ones in 1974. Chrissie Evert also won 125 consecutive matches on clay between August 1973 and May 1979. Despite these outstanding accomplishments, the media only zeroed on Swaitek beating Serena’s record. A few days after the French Open, another media house searched the Serena record library to find another irrelevant record to erode Serena’s greatness. Sportskeeda put out an article with the caption, “Iga Swiatek goes past Serena Williams’ WTA ranking points tally & becomes the first player in the 21st century to cross 7000 points in 1st half of the year after Roland Garros.” It is plain to see that the comparison is not genuine but an attempt to cast aspersions on Serena’s greatness. As the media continue to clutch at straws, it is only a matter of time before we could see newspaper headlines like: “Iga Swiatek defeats two players with a middle name beginning with the letter “Z” to erase Serena’s record,” or “Swiatek goes past Serena Williams record of winning a tie break on Tuesday’s after skipping lunch.”
Iga Swaitek isn’t the only active player used by pundits to throw darts at Serena. During the French Open, Rafa Nadal became another adjective used by tennis commentators to modify the noun, Serena. When Serena won her 23rd Grand Slam title at the 2017 Australian Open, Nadal had only amassed 14 Grand Slams. At the time, there was no comparison between Nadal and Serena; instead, commentators compared him to Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer, his fellow Big Three counterparts. Shortly after Rafa Nadal’s success at the French Open title, Serena’s name began to trend on Twitter as the media started to compare Nadal’s 22 Grand Slam haul to Serena’s 23 Grand Slams. Paradoxically, Margaret Court’s 24 Grand Slam haul, which pundits resurrected after Serena reached 23 Grand Slam, is rarely used to compare with Nadal’s accomplishments. In a new twist, men’s and women’s Grand Slam hauls are compared side by side now that Nadal is one short of Serena’s Grand Slam singles titles. For instance, when Nadal was two sets ahead of Rudd in the final, Ben Rothenburg of the New York Times tweeted, “Nadal now one set from a 22nd Grand Slam singles title, which would extend Nadal’s men’s record and would tie Steffi Graf for second-most Slam singles titles in the Open Era, behind only Serena Williams’ 23.” After Nadal s victory, Time Magazine tweeted, “Nadal is now tied with Steffi Graf for the second-most majors, for a woman or man, in the Open Era: now in his sights, the all-time record, 23 major singles titles, held by Serena Williams.”
Serena is the epitome of black excellence. Serena and Venus Williams took the lily-white sports of tennis by storm over 20 years ago and put to rest the white supremacist logic that blacks can’t dominate the tennis field. Serena’s longevity in the game has caused discomfort within the white tennis aristocracy, who have fought tooth and nail to deny and diminish her greatness. Tennis pundits have used successive “Great White Hope”, including retired, recently retired, and active players like Margaret Court, Maria Sharapova, Iga Swiatek and male tennis players like Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer as trump cards against Queen Serena.
But no matter what the naysayers write or think, it does not change the fact that Serena’s place in history is assured. Maya Angelou’s poem, Still I Rise, which Serena has read, comes in handy:
“You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.”
Selah.
Ahmed Olayinka Sule, CFA
June 2022
@Alatenumo
