Serena Williams Hype Overshadows Inconsistency of Game’s Top Players

A familiar pattern is once again emerging at the U.S. Open — most of the top men are still around while the top seven seeds on the women’s side have been sent packing. This comes on the heels of a Wimbledon fortnight where we saw nine of the top ten seeds in the ladies draw depart in the first three rounds. Serena Williams coasted to the final without facing any real title contenders and the highest ranked opponent she faced in the first week at the Open was her sister Venus, who at 38 is still a gamer but is more than a decade removed from her most recent major title.
Sports journalists have been so busy fawning over 36-year-old Serena Williams that few are asking why she rarely has to play any of the maddeningly inconsistent top players who sit near the top of the women’s rankings. Tonight Serena will face #8 seed Karolina Pliskova, who is as emblematic of this phenomenon as many of her now departed comrades. Since achieving the number one ranking last July — which she held for just eight weeks — she hasn’t advanced beyond the quarterfinal round at a major. After losing in the 4th round of Wimbledon, she lost in the second round at Montreal and Cincinnati and in the first round at New Haven. She’s a dangerous player but it would be a huge surprise if she beats Serena.
But here’s a stat you probably won’t hear tonight: Serena is 0–3 this year when facing a top ten opponent. Williams lost to her sister, Venus, then ranked #9, at Indian Wells in March, she lost to Angie Kerber, then ranked #10, in the final at Wimbledon, and she lost to #6 ranked Petra Kvitova in Cincinnati in August. Julia Goerges is the top ranked player Serena has beaten (twice) this year. At 29, Goerges had never before gone beyond the 4th round at a major before reaching the semifinal at Wimbledon this year.
The all-time great tennis star has long been a media darling, but her post-childbirth comeback has turned the queen of tennis into a saint. Lost in this canonization process are some unsettled and rarely discussed questions about both the current state of women’s tennis. Serena is indeed a remarkable player, and an even better story, coming out of Compton to transform a country club sport and inspire an untold number of children from diverse backgrounds to play tennis. But her dominance also begs some questions about the state of women’s tennis that the press are seemingly unwilling to ask.
During Rafael Nadal’s second round victory over Vasek Pospisil on Wednesday night, ESPN displayed a graphic illustrating that Nadal has gone 21–8 versus top ten opponents since 2017, after going just 11–16 in 2015–6. Serena, by contrast, has squared off against top ten ranked players only four times (going 1–3) in the eight events she’s played since 2017.
The U.S. Open is Serena’s seventh event of the year but she’s yet to face Simona Halep, Caroline Wozniacki, Sloane Stephens, Garbine Muguruza or many of the other top WTA players. Looking at her record versus top ten opponents in years past reveals that 2018 hasn’t been a complete outlier.
2017–1–0 (only two events played)
2016–6–2
2015–6–1
In her long career, it’s remarkable how infrequently Serena has faced off against other elite players. Take a look at her career marks.
Petra Kvitova 5–2
Simona Halep 8–1
Angelique Kerber 6–3
Caroline Wozniacki 10–1
Sloane Stephens 5–1
Madison Keys 3–0
Coco Vandeweghe 3–0
Some of this is a function of the fact that Serena plays a limited schedule but much of it is the reality that the other top female players have been wildly inconsistent, as we’ve seen in the first week of the Open, with Simona Halep, Caroline Wozniacki, Angie Kerber, Petra Kvitova and Garbine Muguruza all falling early.
After a cracking Australian Open final, won by Halep over Wozniacki, the two haven’t squared off again and have only played each other seven times over the years. Halep has also played other top would-be rivals infrequently in her career, facing Kvitova only four times, Sloane Stephens nine times, and Kerber ten times.
Take a look at the career marks of members of the men’s Big Five against top opponents by comparison.
Nadal- Federer 23–15
Nadal- Djokovic 25–27
Nadal- Murray 17–7
Nadal-Wawrinka 17–3
Federer — Djokovic 22–24
Federer- Murray 14–11
Federer- Wawrinka 21–3
Djokovic- Murray 25–11
Djokovic- Wawrinka 19–5
Murray- Wawrinka 11–8
Why does any of this matter? For starters, fan interest peaks when the top players face each other. And rivals drive each other to get better. While it might be a great feel good story to see Serena trampling unheralded opponents, real tennis fans want to see her face the very best. Rivalries are what create interest in the sport — this is why we still see countless documentaries and TV segements about Chris & Martina, Borg and McEnroe, Sampras and Agassi, Nadal and Federer and so on.
The fact that Serena hasn’t had a legitimate rival in years (Sharapova, who bowed out with a listless 38-unforced error loss to Carla Suarez Navarro Monday night, doesn’t count since she’s 2–19 versus Serena) is a testament to her dominance but her would-be rivals tend to self-destruct before they even face her.
Last Thursday night, #2 seed Caroline Wozniacki hit just six winners and made 35 unforced errors while being trounced 6–4, 6–2 by Lesia Tsurenko, a 29-year old journeywoman who has never before advanced beyond the 4th round at a major. Tennis legend Chris Evert tried to put a positive spin on the loss, dubiously attributing Wozniacki’s loss to the “depth of women’s tennis” rather than her lackluster performance. But over the weekend, Evert admitted that women’s tennis was “starving for rivalries.”
My point here isn’t to diminish Serena Williams. Her off-court story is remarkable and she’s clearly one of the sports legends. It’s not her fault that her peer group has been so wildly inconsistent in recent years. But women’s tennis doesn’t need more “depth.” There are a host of seemingly interchangeable players — each with a two-handed backhand and a stay at the baseline approach to the sport that lacks variety and flavor. (And don’t get me started on the proliferation of excessive grunting/screaming!)
The last seven majors have been won by seven different women: Serena Williams, Ostapenko, Muguriuza, Stephens, Wozniacki, Halep and Kerber. If this year’s US Open isn’t won by Serena, we will have eight different Grand Slam champions in two years for the first time since 1937–38.
Serena has no rival, but it’s not too late for someone — Sloane Stephens, Madison Keys, Naomi Osaka, or Aryna Sabalenka for example — to step forward and provide Serena with a late career foil. Stephens, in particular, is markedly different to Serena in style of play, temperament and age. If they played each other more often, theirs could be exactly the kind of rivalry that women’s tennis needs. But Stephens, a Floridian, wilted in the heat Tuesday in a straight set loss to Anastasija Sevastova, a 29-year old Latvian who had never before made it past the 4th round at a major before this week.
Keys and Osaka, lurking on the other side of the draw from Serena, have big, go-for-broke power games but I don’t think they match up well with Serena. Either one could beat Serena on a given day but they’re both a bit fragile and they give away too many free points to win consistently, at least at this stage of their careers. All signs point to a continued state of flux in the women’s game. Serena has a chance to win several more majors but she’ll probably continue to face a rotating cast of characters on the other side of the net. Variety may be the spice of life, but in tennis, familiarity breeds a very compelling form of contempt.
