Serena’s spot in tennis history safe
Williams doesn’t need another major just for the sake of breaking Court’s record
For the millions who revere her as a cultural icon and perhaps the greatest competitor in the history of the sport, the time has come to confront the possibility that Serena Williams might never win another Grand Slam tournament.
To be clear, that’s not a prediction. Williams’ top level of tennis is more than capable of beating the best players in women’s tennis, and with the right draw and injury luck, surviving the twoweek grind of a major is absolutely still within her grasp.
But after her third-set collapse in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, an unraveling that seemed to begin with a turned ankle up 5-1 in the third set against Karolina Pliskova, the number of legitimate opportunities for Williams to match and then surpass Margaret Court’s record 24 majors is likely in the single digits.
It’s not terribly difficult to envision how this will play out. With each Grand Slam that ends with someone else holding the trophy, the focus will increasingly turn to the math. When the French Open comes around in May, Williams will be closer to her 38th birthday than to her 37th, and as we’ve seen with newly minted stars such as Naomi Osaka and an ascendant generation of teenagers, the competition isn’t worse.
But as the hourglass empties on how long Williams can realistically compete for majors, focusing on the one she needs to tie Court would be a real misreading of both tennis history and her legacy.
For a lot of reasons, it would be nice for Williams to surpass Court and put a bow on the title of Greatest of All Time with a Grand Slam record that would probably never be surpassed in our lifetime. But it’s also unnecessary.
With all due respect to Court, who was clearly one of the great players of any era, the Grand Slam record she holds is neither relevant nor translatable to the game as we know it now.
Of Court’s 24 major titles, 13 came before the so-called Open Era, a line of demarcation in tennis history that skews a lot of the records because the Grand Slams allowed only amateurs to compete until 1968.
Moreover, Court won the Australian Open 11 times in her home country at a time when the field there was mostly made up of Australian players, as very few others made an effort due to the distance and the paltry prize money the tournament used to offer.
Billie Jean King, for example, played the Australian Open only three times during her prime years, beating Court in the 1968 final and losing to her the next year. Other top players of that era such as Maria Bueno, Ann Jones and Virginia Wade just did not bother going to Australia more than a couple of times during their careers.
This is not Court’s fault. She was a dominant player whose game translated across the world with five French Open titles, three at Wimbledon and five US Opens. But if we’re going to make a big deal about Williams’ major count potentially falling short of Court’s, we have to put it in proper context.
From 1960 to 1964, the fields Court had to beat ranged between 27 and 48 players with only a handful from outside of Australia. Even in 1969 when Court beat King, 25 of the 32 players in the field were from the host country.
While it’s useful for historical consistency to consider the Australian Open a major during that period, it was not functionally one of the best or most important tournaments in the world the way it is now. Thus, it’s ridiculous to compare Court’s record with what Wil- liams has accomplished in her career based on the raw Grand Slam count. And that won’t change even if she retired tomorrow.
The only legitimate argument against Williams as the GOAT would be comparing the totality of her Grand Slam record against that of Steffi Graf. While Williams tied Graf ’s 22 titles at Wimbledon in 2016 and surpassed her in Australia before announcing her pregnancy in 2017, there is a conversation to be had on the margins about the competition they faced during their careers.
From Graf ’s first major at the 1987 French until her retirement in 1999, she lost to only 10 total players in Grand Slams, five of whom were themselves multiple Grand Slam champions.
Williams has had far more upset losses to players who were not really in her stratosphere — hello Roberta Vinci, Alize Cornet, Sabine Lisicki and Virginie Razzano — but she has also played longer than Graf and dealt with various injuries and health issues that knocked her back at times.
That aside, Williams already caught and surpassed Graf, which should be more than enough to end whatever conversation people want to have about needing more majors.
And maybe they’ll come regardless. Though the clay has historically been more difficult for Williams, her big serve still translates well at Wimbledon and she’s been heartbreakingly close in New York three of the last four years.
Overall, her comeback after childbirth and some related health complications has been both inspiring and successful. Two Grand Slam finals last year, and the way she played in Australia until the third set showed how good her best tennis can be.
But Williams is no longer so far ahead of the pack that her small regressions are inconsequential. There is a deep field now in women’s tennis of accomplished players in their mid-20s prime and superstars on the horizon such as Osaka and Aryna Sabalenka who are improving with every Slam.
If Williams can get through all of them to win another major or two, all the better. But if she doesn’t, she’s already proved to be the Grand Slam queen.