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Serena Williams claims if she were a man, she would already be called “the greatest,” which is sad because it’s true

Serena Williams claims if she were a man, she would already be called “the greatest,” which is sad because it’s true
Serena Williams claims if she were a man, she would already be called “the greatest,” which is sad because it’s true

Serena Williams is one of the most incredible athletes we’ve ever seen. The tennis star has set numerous impressive records and won tons of championships. But Serena Williams still isn’t considered one of the greatest athletes of all time. Often, when the media talks about Serena as the greatest, they qualify it by saying she’s the greatest female athlete.

As Serena, now 35-years-old, approaches the latter years of her career, she’s started to think about her legacy. In an interview with Common on ESPN’s The Undefeated, Serena talks about her place as one of sports’ all-time greats. And she has an interesting insight that should make the world of sports take a hard look at itself.

Serena Williams insisted that if she were a man, she would already be known as one of the greats.

She told Common on ESPN, “I think if I were a man, I would have been in that conversation a long time ago. I think being a woman is just a whole new set of problems from society that you have to deal with, as well as being black, so it’s a lot to deal with – and especially lately. I’ve been able to speak up for women’s rights because I think that gets lost in color, or gets lost in cultures. Women make up so much of this world, and, yeah, if I were a man, I would have 100 percent been considered the greatest ever a long time ago.”

Honestly, Serena is probably right, because she is definitely a rare and special athlete. And that’s a HUGE problem that female athletes are judged so differently from men. Serena has won 22 Grand Slam Championships, the most coveted of tennis honors, and 4 Gold Medals. So just on bling alone, she deserves to be listed amongst the greats.

But if you’ve ever seen her play tennis, you can see that beyond the championships, there’s something special about Serena.

Serena has incredible power that most players can’t contend with. And she clearly has a fire when she plays that fuels her incredible performances. It will definitely be a long time before we see an athlete quite like Serena again.

But even with all this considered, Serena too often gets put into the category of “female athlete” rather than “athlete.”

As Serena herself wrote in an open letter published in The Guardian, there are so many barriers to a woman’s success that we need to tear down.

She said, “One of those barriers is the way we are constantly reminded we are not men, as if it is a flaw. People call me one of the ‘world’s greatest female athletes.’ Do they say LeBron is one of the world’s best male athletes? Is Tiger? Federer? Why not? They are certainly not female. We should never let this go unchallenged. We should always be judged by our achievements, not by our gender.”

Serena makes such a good point. We never question whether a male athlete is good “for a man.” But with women, we constantly qualify our accolades. So it’s time to change that. Just like Serena, we’d like to see athletes judged by their talents, regardless of their gender.

Because female athletes are as impressive (and sometimes MORE impressive) than male ones.

Serena’s words inspire us, and we for sure consider her one of the greatest athletes. Period.

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