Serena Williams Is America’s Greatest Athlete

[TBF]

I have never been a big fan of Serena mostly because of her hard-hitting game (I don't like the "power over finesse" of Marin Cilic either) and also her attitude. I also never liked John McEnroe's theatrics. But this article points out that many in fact do love McEnroe - and that Serena has been held to a double standard in many ways. What do you think?


The Sporting Scene
Just published 11:53 am
Serena Williams Is America’s Greatest Athlete
By Ian Crouch

This week, as the sports world repays our slavish attention with more lousy, grotesque news, it’s worth noting that, on Sunday, the greatest American athlete in a generation won the U.S. Open, again, for the sixth time and the third year in a row.

Serena Williams’s victory over Caroline Wozniacki puts her in rarefied company in the history of women’s tennis. It was her eighteenth Grand Slam singles title, tying her with Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova. (The pair welcomed her to the club by giving her an eighteen-karat gold Tiffany bracelet.) Even before Sunday, Evert had said several times that Williams is the best woman ever to play, despite the fact that she remains four major titles behind Steffi Graf (who, the argument goes, faced lesser opponents), and six behind the all-time recorder holder, Margaret Court (who played before the modern open era). Williams has been to twenty-two Slam finals, and has lost only four times. At thirty-two, less than two months younger than Roger Federer, who is considered to playing in the near-twilight of his career, she is the oldest player to hold the women’s world No. 1 ranking. After the match, Evert said, “People kept asking Serena the last year, how’s it going to feel to be in the same company with Martina and Chrissie, and I’m thinking to myself, well, I’m the one who’s honored to have Serena in the same sentence.”

Forget tennis for a moment, though: when I say the greatest athlete in a generation, I mean the greatest in any sport. Sorry, LeBron. Sorry, Tiger. Sorry, Derek. For fifteen years, over what is, in fact, two generations in tennis, Williams has been a spectacular and constant and yet oddly uncherished national treasure. She is wealthy and famous, but it seems that she should be more famous, the most famous. Anyone who likes sports should love Williams, a dazzling combination of talent, persistence, style, unpredictability, poise, and outsized, heart-on-her-sleeve flaws.

But not everyone loves her. Part of this is owing to the duelling -isms of American prejudice, sexism and racism, which manifest every time that viewers, mostly men, are moved to remark on Williams’s body in a way that reveals what might most charitably be called discomfort ...

Much more here: http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/serena-williams-americas-greatest-athlete?utm_source=tny&utm_campaign=generalsocial&utm_medium=facebook&mbid=social_facebook

[KamaAina]

1. Also, don't forget that she played in her sister's shadow at first

Remember Venus?

[bigwillq]

2. Serena is amazing.

I love watching her play. I hope she plays for many more years, provided she's healthy enough to play at an elite level.

[hughee99]

3. No offense to the people who love tennis, and I'm one of them, but the reason

she's not the MOST famous athlete is because she plays tennis, and tennis, while popular, is far from a top sport in the US. She may very well be America's greatest current athlete, but tennis stars are still never going to get the kind of love in the US that those from bigger sports do.

Just a thought, you could make an argument for Kelly Slater who has been the most dominant at his sport over 20 years, but still, it's surfing which ranks lower than tennis in the US.