Serena doesn’t need another Grand Slam win
AMERICAN STAR HAS DONE MORE THAN ENOUGH TO PROVE HER ALL-TIME GREATNESS
Margaret Court’s 24 Grand Slam titles is the only significant mark Serena Williams hasn’t broken in her tennis career. It’s the polite thing to open this discussion by saying, “Not to take anything away from Court, and with all due respect to her …” But I’m not going to do that, because frankly a couple of things should be taken away from Court.
Notice I don’t call Court’s number a record. That’s because it isn’t one, really. It’s just one of those marring historical irregularities from the white linen and wood era that drives you crazy with its irrelevancy and injustice.
Now that Williams has withdrawn from the U.S. Open because of an injury just shy of her 40th birthday, her chance of winning one more singles Slam to add to her 23 and thus officially equal Court’s career total is admittedly fading. But here’s the thing: It shouldn’t even be a pursuit. The idea that Williams is a slightly less accomplished Grand Slam player than Court is pure foolishness. Let’s look closely at Court’s mark, the whole of it, including the undistinguished lead-pencil nature of some of those titles, and give it the asterisk it deserves and quit calling it the record.
There are several reasons to consider Williams the real record holder in Grand Slam singles titles, and none of them have to do with Court’s crankish or controversial views. I’m perfectly happy to leave the lady alone in her beliefs. But what I can’t abide is that she’s credited with a record when in two of those tournament victories she didn’t have to play a completed final, a fact that is seldom noticed or mentioned.
In 1966, Court was the beneficiary of a total walkover, when Nancy Richey couldn’t take the court in the Australian Open final because of a bad knee. They never played a point. And in the 1965 Australian Open, her opponent, Maria Bueno, had to retire in the third set because of an injury.
If you ask me, that alone makes Williams the legit record holder, because all of her 23 titles came with complete victories in the finals.
Then there is the fact that Court won 11 of 24 majors at the Australian Open, many of them when the event really didn’t qualify as a major championship. Through most of the 1960s it was just a closed national title. Her greatest contemporary rival, Billie Jean King, considered the tournament such a minor afterthought that she entered it just three times in her entire career. She was too busy launching the women’s pro tour.
When Court won four straight Australian titles from 1960 to 1963, the women’s draw looked more like a club championship. Court defeated the same opponent, Jan Lehane O’neill, in straight sets all four years. O’neill never made it past the quarters in any other Grand Slam event.
How unimportant was the Aussie title in the closed, pre-open era? Chris Evert played it just once between 1971 and 1981, and just six times ever. Martina Navratilova appeared there just once between 1973 and 1979.
We can debate what a “major” should be — golf fans occasionally talk about the Masters field being small and diluted with amateurs and old-timers — but we all know what a major isn’t. And a tournament that the world’s top players don’t even bother to enter isn’t a major.
Williams consistently has played against the best of her generation. A dozen of her Grand Slam finals — more than half her total — came against 12 different players who were ranked No. 1 at one time or another.
Court, without question, was a worthy, imposing champion and certainly ranks among the all-timers.
But “The Arm,” as she was known, just isn’t the all-time greatest Grand Slammer. It’s not an insult to say so, merely a matter of accurate historical context. Had the Australian been a tournament with deeper international fields, Court certainly would have won far fewer of them — probably four or five, judging by her records in the French (five titles), Wimbledon (three) and the U.S. Open (five).
I’ve always considered Evert the ultimate authority on these matters, simply because of the sheer span of her career: She stood across the net from every modern great when they were at or near their primes: She upset Court, then top-ranked, in 1970, and was still a viable Grand Slam competitor in 1989 when she upset an ascendant Monica Seles in the U.S. Open. As Evert likes to say, “I’ve played ’em all, baby.”
Evert long has regarded Williams as the real ruler in the game of historical comparisons. A couple of years ago, I asked her to place Court and Williams in context. She said, “Margaret was a tremendous athlete and had tremendous power for that era, but let’s put it this way: I beat her at 15.”
Records reflect only so much, and a lot of records don’t matter enough to argue over. A number stamped on a page can’t capture the pure force of Williams’s game. It never could.