BDLive - LONDON — Serena Williams fired a warning to Maria Sharapova before their Wimbledon semifinal as the world No 1 admitted she saved her best performances for clashes with her fiercest rival.
Williams and Sharapova meet on Thursday in the latest instalment of a bitter rivalry that took root on Centre Court in 2004 and still festers.
Sharapova caused one of the great Wimbledon shocks 11 years ago when, at just 17, she defeated Williams in the final to claim her first Grand Slam title.
But while Sharapova has collected five Grand Slams and built a global brand that makes her the world’s highest-paid female athlete, the 28-year-old still trails in Williams’s wake, and hasn’t come out on top since 2004.
The 33-year-old American has a 17-2 lead in their head-to-head record, winning their past 16 meetings and depriving Sharapova of three major titles — in the 2007 and 2015 Australian Open finals and the 2013 French Open final.
Williams has also won all four of her semifinal meetings with Sharapova, defeating the Russian in their previous Wimbledon clash in the last 16 in 2010, and in the 2012 Olympic final.
Serena Williams current status in American Sports BAFFLES me. She is simply the best that has ever played the sport and no one cares at all. Our society loves to celebrates winners and Americans in international competitions. But, Serena gets ZERO love for the most part.
Don't get me wrong - I totally get that there is a race aspect at play with her popularity in a country club sport. Tiger Woods is the outlier in terms of comparison of popularity across ethnicity in sports. But it simply baffles me that Serena is not held in a higher regard for her place in American sports history. She simply toys with her competition like she is playing high school tennis.
America should embrace Serena before she declines athletically and that should be coming within in the next 5 years. If you can't appreciate greatness in terms of athletic dominance than you are simply not a sports fan. You can care less about tennis or any other sport for that matter but if you don't appreciate someone that is the best at something then I feel bad for you.
P.S. Serena would rip off my arm in .2 seconds in Arm wrestling.
P.S. Serena would rip off my arm in .2 seconds in Arm wrestling.
No comments:
Post a Comment