I feel suspended somewhere between the future of tennis on display this week and the end of an era that we celebrated last week.
On Wednesday, as Serena prepared to take on world No. 2 Anett Kontaveit, U.S. Olympian and professional volleyball player Chiaka Ogbogu joined the crowd in Ashe. “Serena and Venus were my first examples of power female athletes,” Ogbogu told me. “Serena was the first Black woman I saw win something on a big stage, and for me that was powerful.” Gotham FC defender Ellie Jean was also there to watch the Williams sisters, calling them “inspiring and trailblazers in every way, shape, and form.
Both Ogbogu and Jean understand what it feels like to play predominantly white sports that are being transformed by Black women. “There are parallels from the tennis crowds to the soccer crowds,” Jean noted while complimenting Serena’s career on and off the court. “She’s the blueprint,” Ogbogu agreed. “The fact that Serena shows up unapologetically herself in a sport that doesn’t have a lot of people who like us—and dominated! I hope she knows how grateful we all are for her.
Telling Serena Williams that something is impossible is simply handing her an invitation—and motivation—That sort of confidence and resilience has helped catapult Serena into legend. Not because she makes it look easy—but because you witness the fight. You see when she digs deep. Australia 2007, New York in 2012. Pregnancy. With a target on her back. With full-throated emotion, while her anger—
—are policed and scrutinized. She has seemed at once superhuman and immensely human. An imperfect perfectionist.How she’s asserted that humanity has been influential beyond all of the extraordinary things she’s done with her body on a tennis court. Through its iterations and changes, she has loved that body. She has loved her body in the spotlight as it’s been scrutinized and degraded.
In many ways, this U.S. Open provided a perfect ending. On her terms, unencumbered by the expectations of others, there just to exist for herself: to play for herself, to define herself. To love herself, and be loved back, without conditions or caveats, in victory or defeat. Just to be.I’m sure that she wanted more than anything to keep winning. But I hope that how she went out is liberating for her. I hope it is peaceful. I hope it contains as much joy as she has given us over these years.
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