Willoughby Avenue
Mark this year as Serena Williams Week 2015. She won her 20th Grand Slam title, making her arguably the best tennis player of all time — men or women.
Serena Williams is world treasure, not just a national one (I mean, she has a home in Paris). She’s arguably the greatest woman athlete of all-time, and in my opinion, encroaching on the Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan considerations of greatest ever period. Why, you ask? Hard facts. In tennis, she’s put together a resume in singles and doubles very few can compete with. Twenty majors top all Americans in the Open Era. The Serena Slam—held all for majors at once. 13-0 record in doubles major finals with sister Venus (don’t even get me started on older sister). And, domination of highest level of competition any great champion has ever faced plus over 20 years in the game.
In those 20 years, however, she’s encountered a more complicated response to her greatness. Her father, who openly shared that his desire to have two more children came about after watching a tournament winner take home a $40,000 check in 1980, received backlash in the sisters’ early years for his audacious prophecies about their future success. Verdict on those prophecies: not one lie was spoken. That backlash in combination with anti-black racism had crowds harshly rooting against them from day one, even on their home courts.
In 2001, after older sister Venus defaulted from a semi-final match against Serena in Indian Wells, CA—the closest premier tournament to the Williams’ hometown of Compton, CA—the crowd heaved racial slurs and boos towards Serena during the entirety of her championship defeat of Kim Clijsters the next day. As a result, Serena has not returned to that tournament since 2001, which makes this week’s statement of her impending return and complimenting charitable campaign for the Equal Justice Initiative even more remarkable.