New York Times
My goodness gracious. Here I am again blogging about African American women and tennis. But alas! The canvas has come alive with new strokes ! (pun intended) It is no longer a question of will one or both of the William sisters make it to the finals. It is no longer will an American female tennis player other than the Williams sisters make it to a grand slam final with a real chance of coming away with the trophy. I, for one, had grown tired of the European/Eastern European (or former Soviet Bloc nations) dominating even when they weren’t the best or had no grand slam under their belt. Their presence manifested in their numbers and long blond hair. The German, Angelique Kerber, for example, comes to mind. Or the Dutch, Caroline Wozniacki, who made it to a couple of grand slam finals but never won one (an aside – love me some Svetlana Kuznetsova who actually won a US open single title and two French Opens). Yes, the Russian Maria Sharapova has perhaps been the most successful (if based more on her looks and presence off court) and her three grand slam titles are nothing to sneeze at unless you are a Williams sister. Six-feet-two, blond and hazel-eyed, she was the darling of women’s tennis even while Serena was the reigning queen. This alone puts things into perspective when one is willing to look at the facts. That’s what I’m talking about – the bias and the needing to be twice as good. But he world does not exist in black and white (except mostly in the United States where Brown people have begun to cause a great deal of concern for the colonizers and their white supremacist descendants who, at all costs, want to remain something that they are not – ‘white’ and therefore ‘pure’) and I would wholeheartedly welcome the championship of an Asian woman.
Ever since Serena Williams won the 1999 US Open, the first of either sister to win a grand slam – just as predicted by their father, Richard Williams – they have dominated the women’s game spanning more than eighteen years. This victory is burned into my memory not just because it was the first for an African America woman since Althea Gibson in 1957, before the Open Era. This memory is indelibly linked to my daughter’s going off to college when her father and I watched Serena defeat Martina Hingis from the Harvard Inn’s dining room. My shear joy had nothing to do with Martina Hingis whom I admired but everything to do with this seventeen year-old African American woman who endured so much racist flack from the dominant white tennis community that was not quite ready for her and her sister. Serena and my daughter, also seventeen, were setting out on divergent paths to whatever their respective futures held in store for them. It was a moment to remember.
Tennis history was made on Thursday, September 7, and Saturday, September 9. Not only was it an all American women’s semifinal; it was a semifinal with three African American players! At lease one African American would be in the finals. Yes, that is important to me as an African American woman. I pulled for Venus against Sloane as a sentimental favorite and someone I think deserves as many trophies as she is capable of garnering, considering the person of great quality that she is, her contributions to the advancement of tennis women and the dignity she has brought to the sport. But I was happy to see Sloane take the match. I was not able to watch the Madison/CoCo match but was of the belief that Madison would win. Two years ago it was an all Italian final. I believe that so much pressure was on Serena to complete a single year grand slam that she chocked. Yes, it’s all part of the game. But Roberta Vinci and Flavia Pennetta was a once in a lifetime affair. Neither will reach the finals of a grand slam again, if for no other reason than their age. All four of our semifinalists will be back, and that includes Venus. Think what the possibilities might have been had Serena been there instead of nursing her newborn daughter. Relish the thought.
(Below are links to blogs previously published on the subject of
Serena and her prowess.)
http://www.ucbrenda.com/1/category/sloane%20stephens/1.html
http://ucbrenda.com/1/post/2013/06/serena-lebrawn-williams.html
Serena destroys racket: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plnDiYM0mVw
Just Writing Around 