Serena Williams: Where Does She Rank Among the Greatest Americans Ever?

One of the greatest challenges as a sports writer is trying to define an athlete’s career, especially when it is still a work in progress.

This is one of those times.

As I sit here mashing keys on a keyboard, my mind is trying to place Serena Williams—arguably one of the greatest women’s tennis players of our generation or any generation and also arguably one of the greatest American tennis players in the history of the game—among the greats.

By definition of titles won and important matches (Grand Slams and gold medals), Williams is the queen on the throne right now. Yes, there will be someone who comes along and knocks her off the seat at some point; but in all honesty, she carries the torch for American tennis right now.

That includes a men’s game that is losing the one player, Andy Roddick, who we thought would become the next Jimmy Connors, or John McEnroe. He and others like James Blake, Mardy Fish and John Isner have failed so far to live up to those expectations.

Their careers are not failures, but the speed at which we as fans want to see a champion hoisting major titles is faster than the men’s side can produce. And a current Mt. Rushmore of tennis greats would see faces like McEnroe, Connors, Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi for the men’s game while the women’s side might look something like Williams, Chris Evert, Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova.

Williams (and yes, we can include her sister Venus since the two are overly powerful and have each dominated tennis at times during their careers) has been able to overcome injury and time away from the game to pursue other interests. And both sisters have become the “Lakers of Tennis,” where it seemed at some point they could turn on a switch and just obliterate an opponent.

That my friends, is dominance, a word sports writers have been told over the years not to use unless it is necessary, and in this case, the word can be used effectively.

Also—and I hate to use this as an issue or part of the subject matter—Williams (we are talking about Serena and her legend) plays in a different culture of sports now. Do we really know how dominating the already great Arthur Ashe could have been if he were playing today? Would we see Althea Gibson amongst the greats of all time?

The times changed, the climates changed and tennis changed.

Richard Williams pushed both of his girls to challenge the tennis world, and they succeeded.

I’m not here to lay claim that Serena Williams is the greatest of all time on a list of many whom we could debate for days and years. The men’s game and the woman’s game are not equal and I cannot safely say she would come out and beat an Aaron Krickstein or play evenly with the likes of a Michael Chang. This is not about gender equality, either. So, those issues do not come into play.

Is she better than Martina Navratilova in her prime? We don’t know.

Is she better than Chris Evert in her prime? Maybe.

Could she have held her own on the hard courts with middle-of-the-pack tennis stars of the past like Krickstein or maybe Mardy Fish now? Possibly.

I have often said I would love to see Serena in a match against the greats in their prime, most notably Navratilova or Steffi Graf or even Billie Jean King. Those are the standards by which she should be judged.  For now, we can still witness her greatness, even at the age of 30—soon to be 31—and see she can still make magic on the court.

Where she stands in terms of overall ranking as far as American greats is something I will leave other pundits to determine.