Update: Serena lost her first round match to Patty Schynder, just a few days after announcing she was “the best in the world.” Classic.
Let me start off by saying I respect and admire both Venus & Serena as players. They are thrilling to watch (especially against each other), and helped to revitalize interest in Women’s tennis that was sorely lacking after greats like Steffi Graf started to leave the game. I am tired of them, though. I doubt I’m alone with these thoughts. When I woke up on Monday, poured my bowl of Frosted Flakes, put some blueberries on top, and checked ESPN.com, I saw two headlines that annoyed me. They were not ‘bad,’ in the Dayydenko Betting Scandal/Dokic had an abusive father kind of way, but as I said, they were simply annoying.
The first one I crossed, “Venus, Serena ‘would love to play’ Fed Cup Final,” is clearly a good thing. But it’s still annoying. Consider the following – this is only the second final Team USA has reached this decade (2000 doesn’t count because as everyone knows the new millennium didn’t actually start til 2001); and out of a possible 22 ties since they began playing in 1999, Serena has played in four 4 them, and Venus has played in a more respectable (but still undesirable) 8. To me, this screams “I don’t want to work too hard…but I want the glory,” a la Roger Clemens that time he signed with the Astros when he only had to pitch home games. This might not be true in the least, but it certainly appears to be, and that’s the point. If you want my opinion, Mary Jo should say “thanks, but no thanks,” go with the team that got here there.
The second headline actually did more than annoy me, it incensed me - ”Serena: ’Despite Rankings, I’m still world’s best.’” No Serena, right now, you are actually the world’s second best. Dinara Safina is the world’s best. Ok, I am going a bit overboard, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that ultimately I think Safina is a better tennis player than Serena, but in the article Serena frankly says, “We all know who the real number one is…” referring to herself, of course. And it’s not true, the real number 1 is in fact DINARA SAFINA. Serena has been on the tour for quite awhile now, is she not aware that the ranking system favors those who play tournaments on a more consistent basis than she (or her sister) does?
Listen to Safina’s defense, “It’s not luck. Nobody gave it to me. I played two Grand Slam finals and last year I won four titles. This didn’t come out of sky.” I love it…here’s to hoping they are in the same quarter in Paris this year.
