The End of an Era

[CryptCreeper72]

When Serena Williams first started playing professional tennis, I was only watching because I was an Andre Agassi fan girl.

But I remember.

I remember because they called her and Venus beasts...animals. They said they grunted too much. They were too big. Too powerful. Too much.

What they meant was they were too black.

They accused them of match fixing. They accused them of being too competitive, of not being good sports.

They accused them of that because they couldn't accuse them of being black.

Here we are, all these years later and Venus is one of the best ever and Serena is the undisputed greatest of all time. Hell, she is (in my opinion) the greatest female OR male tennis player ever.

Now that she had played what was probably her last match, I am a little sad. She is the GOAT. She has inspired a generation of players and yes, she DID change the game forever...for the better.

The ranks are FULL of women of color now and they don't have to endure the hate and predjudices because she did it for them.

Women tennis players can wear whatever they want. And they can grunt as loud as they want to. Oh. And they make as much as their male counterparts.

I will miss her. And I am thankful for what she did for the game.

We all owe you a debt that can never be repaid.

 

[Angela Chilling]

We all owe you a debt that can never be repaid.

Yes, absolutely.

I think many people do not fully appreciate what Serena Williams did for tennis. Tennis was traditionally a white, elitist sport before Serena and although there were previous black champions such as Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe, no one dominated the sport to the extent that everyone had to take note of her. Subsequent to Serena it's no coincidence that there has been a proliferation of black players, many of whom have cited her as their inspiration.

The other way in which she transformed tennis is that before her and Venus, woman's tennis was largely a dainty game and women tennis players were mostly slim and would pat the ball over the net and there were long baseline rallies in which players would slowly grind down each other. Serena in particular changed the sport into a power game, She wasn't slim, she was curvy and muscular. She didn't pat the ball over the net, she used her power to win points.

The only other player than has had such a significant role in transforming women's tennis is probably Billie Jean King who once said "Every generation's job is to make the next generation better" and Serena definitely did that.