One must respect the game and tennis must respect Serena Williams
One must respect the game and tennis must respect Serena Williams
Dress codes aren’t uncommon in sport and perhaps the world’s most famous is the all-white get-up required for tennis players during Wimbledon. Now the French Open is introducing their own—and it’s all Serena Williams’ fault.
French Tennis Federation president Bernard Guidicelli says the new rules are being implemented because he thinks ‘that sometimes we’ve gone too far.’ Guidicelli took exception to Serena Williams’ figure-hugging superhero catsuit saying ‘it will no longer be accepted. One must respect the game and the place.’
Insinuating that Serena Williams has ever done anything but respect the game is a joke and deeply offensive to the woman who has raised international tennis to levels never seen before. She has won 23 grand slams—the most of any player, male or female, in the Open era. Billie Jean King got it right in her tweet: ‘The respect that’s needed is for the exceptional talent Serena Williams brings to the game. Criticising what she wears to work is where the true disrespect lies.’
Serena Williams is without a doubt the greatest tennis player the world has ever seen and yet she is repeatedly singled out for reasons that have nothing to do with her talent. During her storm to the top, she has endured disrespect no other player in the history of the sport has experienced. She has been subjected to racism and sexism from both her opponents, tennis fans, and now the organisers of one of the four largest tournaments in the sport. She weathers constant attacks on her body and incessant drug testing; and she does it all with aplomb.
‘We already talked, we have a great relationship,’ Williams said of Giudicelli in a media conference ahead of the US Open. ‘We talked yesterday—everything is fine, guys. When it comes to fashion you don’t want to be a repeat offender.’
Serena Williams’ career is bigger than the sport itself; modern women’s tennis owes everything to Serena as everyone chasing her talent is forced to be stronger, faster and more creative to get anywhere close to her. She is so good she’s raised the level of play across the board and now that level is spectacular. And yet she’s hit the headlines for offending a man with her ‘Black Panther’-inspired outfit designed to help her deal with the blood clots she suffered during childbirth—the blood clots that almost killed her. Twice. Nike designed her outfit to help the world’s greatest tennis player return to her game safely, while also helping her feel like a superhero.
‘I feel like a warrior wearing it, a queen from Wakanda maybe. I’m always living in a fantasy world. I always wanted to be a superhero, and it’s kind of my way of being a superhero.’
You have to question whether a white player in a similar outfit would have caused the same furore. In fact, it did: Anne White debuted the catsuit in 1985 at Wimbledon. Rain halted play overnight and she was asked not to wear it the next day when the match continued. She lost that match and there was a newspaper splash about her outfit. Fast forward 33 years and now Serena is the subject of unnecessary sexism—and this time it could be life-threatening. While Serena has ‘found other methods’ to promote circulation in her legs, it’s laughable a white male tennis bureaucrat thinks he stands a chance at policing the body of the woman who has steamrollered everything in her path. Serena Williams laughed the ‘controversy’ off—like she has time for something this trivial. She has dominated the game with rules designed for everything she is not, and she’s won. 23 times.
As Nike said: ‘You can take the superhero out of her costume, but you can never take away her superpowers.’
In the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia, one in five women will experience sexual violence in their lifetime but 95 percent of survivors don’t report their experiences. Not officially, anyway.