ALL HAIL SERENA!

Love her or hate her, you must respect Williams’ greatness as she continues Slam quest

YOU SHOULD be cheering for Serena Williams at Wimbledon, which starts on Monday and ends when the grass blades along the baseline are worn to a nubbin. You should hope she wins five more majors, wipes out the all-time career records set by Steffi Graf and Margaret Court.

Why? Well, for starters, she’s carried American tennis on her back now for too long, the only U.S. player since 2008 to win a major singles title. All this time, if you weren’t rooting for — or were rooting against — Serena, there really wasn’t much reason to remain passionate about the sport in this country.

She’s hung in there, won her 20 majors. She’ll turn 34 years old in September, and somehow her ankles and knees have carried a big-bodied athlete this many miles. Her mind, on most days, is still in the game, at least after she’s thrown away another first set on a walkabout.

“I think sometimes she comes out flat,” said Chris Evert, who will be calling Serena’s matches on ESPN. “How she digs herself out of holes, I think she gets mad at herself, and that is the motivation, that gets her going.”

She also shares the best back story of any tennis player, ever, with her own sister. And for those of you who still won’t root for her, who remember mostly her epic tantrums, then consider there is some reason to root against both Graf (at 22 major titles) and Court (24).

Graf, you might remember, did not cover herself in glory upon the return of Monica Seles from the terrible stabbing incident that kept Seles from the sport for more than two primetime years. While Gabriela Sabatini lobbied on Seles’ behalf, to protect her No. 1 ranking, Graf chose not to do so. Graf demonstrated a surprisingly petty lack of support for her chief rival, when it counted most.

Court is considerably scarier. She has become famous in her post-tennis career for her anti-gay-rights tirades in Australia. As a minister in her own church, she delivered a speech in 1994 at the Parliament House in Canberra, shouting, “Homosexuality is an abomination to the Lord!” Martina Navratilova has called Court’s views “truly frightening.”

Meanwhile, Serena was well ahead of her time when she pulled out of a Hilton Head tournament in 2000 because the Confederate flag flew atop the Statehouse.

So while Serena has misbehaved inside the lines far more often than Graf or Court, she has been more thoughtful once she steps away from the crucible of competition.

All that is nice, but will she win at Wimbledon?

“I think Serena’s got a great shot,” Evert said. “She struggled through the French, remarkably winning it. But her game, just because of her serve, she’s going to get free aces. Her power, her mobility on the court…Her adversaries are going to be, basically, motivation, day-in-and-day-out for two weeks. She’s got to be sharp.” Serena Williams isn’t quite unrivaled at Wimbledon. There are at least three women who can give her trouble, end her attempt at a Grand Slam this year and stall her bid to catch Graf and Court.

She could face a rejuvenated Victoria Azarenka in the quarterfinals. Azarenka regularly takes Serena to three sets and has beaten her three times.

Serena could meet Petra Kvitova, a two-time Wimbledon champ, in the final. Kvitova’s hard, flat strokes love grass and she won the last meeting against Williams this spring, on clay, in straight sets.

So there are those matches, yes, but there is also a far more fraught possibility that Serena will once again face her sister, Venus, once again testing everyone’s threshold for discomfort. The unkind brackets have the Williamses colliding early in the fourth round, assuming Venus can get past her first three opponents — no sure thing.

If that should happen, then maybe we can once again remember that Venus — not Maria Sharapova — is clearly the secondbest woman player of this generation. Even as she battles age and Sjogren’s Syndrome, Venus remains a top-16 seed and a five-time Wimbledon champion who has defeated Serena in 11 of 25 matches — including their most recent meeting, last year Ain Montreal. ll these years later, all you’ll get from America at this Wimbledon is the Williams sisters and more promises about the future.

You might as well go with the flow.