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Davenport: Serena Can Be GOAT
By Richard Pagliaro
© Mark Peterson/Corleve
(July 16, 2010) Serena Williams' shot at completing a single-season Grand Slam dissipated in the dirt of Roland Garros when she failed to convert a match point against Samantha Stosur, falling 6-2, 6-7(2), 8-6 in the French Open quarterfinals.
Despite that dirt defeat, Serena continues to gain ground among Grand Slam champions in laying claim to the mythical Greatest of All Time title.
Add Lindsay Davenport to the list of former World No. 1 players who believe Williams will wind up her career as the best woman player in history — if she stays healthy and continues on her current championship pace.
"Absolutely. Absolutely," Davenport said prior to Thursday night's World TeamTennis match in Newport Beach when asked if Serena is the potential GOAT. "You know, history still needs to be determined. The next four years will be crucial to that. Serena will be 29 later this year. If you put in context, Steffi Graf quit at 29. Steffi had 22 (Grand Slam singles titles). Serena's just at (13). So she's going to have to step it up the next few years. It's not going to get easier as you get into your 30s. But if anyone can do it, it's Serena. She's so fit. She has the greatest serve of all time. That's just not even debatable. And she plays the big power game."
Williams solidified her status as an all-time great in successfully defending her Wimbledon crown with a 6-3, 6-2 conquest of Vera Zvonareva. It was Williams' 13th career Grand Slam championship, including her fourth Wimbledon crown.
Firing a Wimbledon women's record 89 aces, Williams did not drop a set in raising the Rosewater Dish. You can't find Williams' real rivals in major draws anymore. She resides in the rare air of the elite champions. Williams' real rivals are the game's greatest champions, including Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova, who watched the final from the royal box. Williams' 13th major title moves her one ahead of King for sixth place on the all-time list behind Margaret Court (24), Steffi Graf (22), Helen Wills Moody (19) and Chris Evert and Navratilova (18 apiece).
Serena celebrates her 29th birthday on September 26th and Davenport believes the next two years will determine Williams' place in tennis history. If she can win at least two majors the next two years — an achievement that is realistic given the fact Serena has won three of the last five majors, owns five Australian Open championships and the fact that Serena and Venus have combined to win nine of the last 11 Wimbledon titles — she can continue her climb toward 20 majors. Twenty would put Williams ahead of Evert, Navratilova and Wills Moody as the most successful American singles Grand Slam champion and put her within striking distance of Graf.
"For her, she's talking so positively about continuing to play, no signs of slowing down," Davenport said of the World No. 1. "You just can never underestimate her. Really the next two years will be very crucial, how many Grand Slam titles she can accumulate in that time."
Williams won 10 of 14 meetings with Davenport, including rallying for a 2-6, 6-3, 6-0 victory in their last meeting in the 2005 Australian Open final.
Davenport is the latest Grand Slam champion to endorse Williams as the potential GOAT. Earlier this year, Hall of Famer Monica Seles said Serena has all the qualities to be the best ever.
"If Serena can stay fit she'll beat all the records," said Seles at the Laureus World Sports Awards last spring. "I appreciate she's got a bit to go yet, but really think she'll do it because she has the potential to be the greatest player of all time. Serena now possesses every attribute required to be the best, and to stay the best. She has a great serve, a sweet return, fantastic movement and all this is combined with awesome power. As if this is not enough, no player comes close to being as mentally strong as her."
Some observers point to Seles' intense rivalry with Graf and the fact that Davenport, who beat Graf, 6-4, 7-5 in the 1999 Wimbledon final and was never the best of friends with Graf, as contributing causes to their support of Williams.
However, Hall of Famer King is convinced Serena will continue to climb the list and believes Williams has the ability to conclude her career as the Greatest Of All Time.
"I think it's great. I think her next goal now should be to beat Chris and Martina's 18 singles (majors), then thereafter she can go on to Steffi Graf (22 majors)," King told the media in a conference call to promote World TeamTennis. "There's no reason Serena Williams shouldn't be the greatest woman player that's ever played."
King calls Navratilova the best singles, doubles and mixed doubles player and cites Graf as the greatest singles player, for now, but believes Serena, who will celebrate her 29th birthday on September 26th, can take the game to new levels.
"Every generation I think gets better usually," King said. "Up to this time the greatest singles, doubles and mixed player has been Martina Navratilova. I think the greatest singles player up to this time has been Graf. There's no reason that Serena can't surpass some goals of people."
It's unlikely Serena, or any woman for that matter, will ever surpass Navratilova's mind-blowing mark of 167 career singles and 177 doubles championships that effectively seals the legendary left-hander's status as the greatest combined singles and doubles champion in history.
Skeptics point to the fact that like Andre Agassi, Williams has had lofty highs but stretches of absences from the sport whereas Navratilova, Graf, Court, Evert and King all sustained remarkable consistency for years.
That fact is undeniable, but those breaks could well add years to Williams' career. It is undeniable she's playing some of the best tennis of her career right now.
Why?
Essentially, Serena has streamlined her schedule to the point where it’s all about the majors. Williams beat Justine Henin to win her fifth Australian Open title in January then sat out three months citing a left knee injury. She has limited her investment of time and energy into regular Tour events in order to peak for the majors. Since the start of 2009, Williams has won five tournament titles and four of them have been Grand Slams (two Australian Open and two Wimbledon crowns) with her lone Tour victory the season-ending WTA Tour Championships last fall.
The other point is Williams has grown into a better match player at this stage of her career. She hits with more topspin off her groundstrokes than when she broke through to win the 1999 US Open and that margin for error means fewer errors. She owns the best serve in the history of women’s tennis, whipping a Wimbledon women’s record 89 aces during the fortnight (to put that number in perspective, Venus Williams had the second-most aces at Wimbledon with 30).
She’s also put more of an effort into off-court training, which takes strain off her surgically-repaired knees and means she can take breaks from tennis and still come back and contend for majors.
Numbers are part of the dilemma in assessing Serena’s place among the game’s greats. In her 15-year career, she’s “only” won 37 titles. To put that in perspective, Davenport, who turned pro two years before Serena, has 55 career championships. Yet, Williams has shown a proclivity for quality over quantity: her 13-3 record in Grand Slam finals is one of the best in history for any woman who has won 10 or more majors.
A tennis historian friend of mine and I recently had a debate over Williams’ place in history. He told me he does not even rank her in the top 5 of all time, putting Suzanne Lenglen ahead of her. Suzanne Lenglen! Didn’t she drink brandy on changeovers, play in a skirt almost as long as a gown and basically beat the same four or five people over and over to accumulate majors?
If you’re going to play that kind of numbers game, then here’s a number that somehow often gets overlooked when it comes to Williams’ place in history: 6.8 billion. That’s the United Nations estimate for the world’s population.
Why does that matter? Because pre-Open Era, tennis was a country club sport that was only available to a select few. For that reason, it’s absurd to suggest Lenglen is a better player than Williams when Lenglen was facing a player population about the size of Weehawken. There was still a color barrier in place then as well so you’re going to tell me Lenglen is better than Williams simply because she compiled more numbers?
Today’s tennis is truly a global game with nations like Russia boasting the Wimbledon finalist, China offering two of the four Australian Open semifinalists and women from Bulgaria and the Czech Republic reaching the Wimbledon final four.
It’s an exercise in futility to compare pre-Open Era champions to Open Era for a number of reasons — the evolution of equipment, the change in surfaces, the fact that professionals could not play majors in the pre Open Era and the advances in nutrition, training and athleticism. But to tell me Serena doesn’t belong in Lenglen’s class because she didn’t win as many titles is just plain nuts. You can’t sacrifice common sense at the alter of the record book if you want to get to any sound truth.
The way I view it is you have the elite Grand Slam champions who have both dominated eras and compiled major championships — Court, Graf, Evert, Navratilova, King — then you have outstanding champions like Seles and Serena who do not have the consistency or compilation of championships (in Seles’ case because she was the victim of a madman’s stabbing, in Serena’s because of apathy/outside career pursuits and the knee surgery) but yet they still dominated for periods of time and even more importantly than short-term dominance they changed the way the sport was played.
This is why I believe Serena belongs at least in the conversation of all-time greats, even if she never wins another major. If she reaches 20, she has a strong case for GOAT.
Why?
Because before Serena you had players who could dominant on serve (Court, Navratilova, Graf) and you had players who could dominate off the return (Evert, in terms of unrelenting consistency of making every return and Seles in terms of sheer explosiveness of the return).
But never before in the history of women’s tennis have you had a woman who can dominate a major match off both serve and return as Serena does at her best.
She’s revolutionized the game in that way in that even now who else in woman’s tennis can do what she does?
Justine Henin cannot dominate a match with her serve. Maria Sharapova’s serve, once a weapon, has been a bit of a mess since her shoulder surgery offering double digit double faults, in some matches. Kim Clijsters has a good serve when it is clicking but she cannot dominant a match with it (see her loss to Zvonareva at Wimbledon) and Stosur has arguably the best kick serve in women’s tennis but her backhand return is a sometimes a weak chip.
Look at recent World No. 1 players — Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic, Dinara Safina, Sharapova, Henin — who among them can do what Serena does?
My point is you cannot quantify Serena’s importance based on numbers of majors won. She will likely not touch Court’s record and may not reach Graf either though I believe she can and will win 20 if she’s healthy and stays fit and focused.
The fascinating aspect of Williams’ career, which has offered both long layoffs and spikes of complete dominance, is that you never know what’s coming next. She could go on and win six majors in the next two years or she could opt to take eight months off. She has not been nearly as consistent as the women ahead of her on the all-time list, which is one reason why some struggle to put her legacy in context.
Two important factors on that point:
1. Her career is not over yet and given the fact a Williams sister has won nine of the last 11 Wimbledon titles and Serena has won five Australian Opens, you have to consider her favorites for those two majors as long as she plays.
2. I don’t believe tennis historians will truly be able to place her career in context until 10 years after she’s retired because we’ll have to see if any woman who comes after her can dominate as she has.
If Williams gets to 20 majors you could make a strong case she is the greatest of all time given the fact she’s won the career Grand Slam in both singles and doubles, collected two Olympic gold medals in doubles, played for a Fed Cup championship team and topped the world rankings in singles and doubles. Actually, you could make that case for her as GOAT right now, given her 13-3 career record in major finals and the fact that her game is more explosive than any elite champion who came before.
Of course there is no definitive answer though it’s often fun to imagine the stylistic clash of champions meeting at their best.
Regardless of where you stand on the GOAT, I will say Williams, at her best and on her best day, is the best woman player I’ve ever seen. The question, of course, is how long can she consistently sustain this level of play?
Spare me the cracks about “poor technique” and “shoddy footwork.” Please. You can’t serve in excess of 125, hit kick, slice and flat serves off the same toss, rifle returns into the corners and take a swing volley out of the air, below the net height and crush it for a winner, unless you have sound technique and racquet skills. And you don’t win 13 of her 16 major finals unless you can reproduce those shots beneath the burden of big match pressure over and over again. If that isn’t a testament to technique, then what are you watching?
Ultimately, of course, there is no definitive answer to the Great Debate, which makes it fun to argue. And I can live with people promoting Graf or Navratilova or Court as their personal GOAT — just don’t tell me Lenglen is better than Williams or I’ll be the one drinking brandy on changeovers.
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