Serena Williams
Grace, graciousness.
Serena Williams is an amazingly talented tennis player. She is so talented, in fact, that she can play a light schedule, or use relatively limited practice time, or emerge from an injury and have a real chance to win any tournament in which she plays.
However she has a hstory of lacking grace in acknowledging the merits of her opponent (other than her nearly equally taented sister) or giving due thanks and credit to the system in which she has been able to thrive.
The recent area in which this behavior presents itself is her treatment of the young woman who is presently ranked number one in the world.
The situation is this. Tennis is dominated by major titles. Serena Williams is presently the holder of three of the four major titles in women's tennis while Dinara Safina holds the WTA computer ranking.
Instead of allowing other critics to question this quirk of the rankings system, Serena Williams previously declared in May that she was obviously the real number one player in the world (similarly the Williams sisters disregarded the rankings system when they emerged in the pro game by announcing they were clearly the best tennis players in the United States, ignoring or dismissing higher ranked Lindsay Davenport)
What is wrong with publicly recognizing that Safina has had a great year? Sure, a system that has Williams ranked second is hard to defend, but it is the system that allows Williams to make a tremendous amount of money.
This reminds me of one of my favorite baseball players ever, Ricky Henderson, who would have gotten a lot more credit for being an all-time great (and I think his legacy will only rise as a beacon of accomplishment without steroid tarnishes--hopefully--as the basestealer in the age of bashers) but he so often highly praised himself that he received little additionaly recongnition beyond his 3rd person rave reviews of himself.
Serena Williams chose to sarcastically accept a system and insult her opponent and mock the WTA. If this is so important to her (and I'm not arguing it is, collecting major titles is the real important thing here) then she should play more tournamnets and take the number one title in that way.
end of rant
Serena Williams is an amazingly talented tennis player. She is so talented, in fact, that she can play a light schedule, or use relatively limited practice time, or emerge from an injury and have a real chance to win any tournament in which she plays.
However she has a hstory of lacking grace in acknowledging the merits of her opponent (other than her nearly equally taented sister) or giving due thanks and credit to the system in which she has been able to thrive.
The recent area in which this behavior presents itself is her treatment of the young woman who is presently ranked number one in the world.
The situation is this. Tennis is dominated by major titles. Serena Williams is presently the holder of three of the four major titles in women's tennis while Dinara Safina holds the WTA computer ranking.
Instead of allowing other critics to question this quirk of the rankings system, Serena Williams previously declared in May that she was obviously the real number one player in the world (similarly the Williams sisters disregarded the rankings system when they emerged in the pro game by announcing they were clearly the best tennis players in the United States, ignoring or dismissing higher ranked Lindsay Davenport)
What is wrong with publicly recognizing that Safina has had a great year? Sure, a system that has Williams ranked second is hard to defend, but it is the system that allows Williams to make a tremendous amount of money.
This reminds me of one of my favorite baseball players ever, Ricky Henderson, who would have gotten a lot more credit for being an all-time great (and I think his legacy will only rise as a beacon of accomplishment without steroid tarnishes--hopefully--as the basestealer in the age of bashers) but he so often highly praised himself that he received little additionaly recongnition beyond his 3rd person rave reviews of himself.
Serena Williams chose to sarcastically accept a system and insult her opponent and mock the WTA. If this is so important to her (and I'm not arguing it is, collecting major titles is the real important thing here) then she should play more tournamnets and take the number one title in that way.
end of rant