McEnroe Serena Sally

the only good answer to the question McEnroe faced is a question: "Can you unpack what you mean by that question, because I want to make sure I understand."

The question McEnroe is actually fielding in that moment has nothing to do with whether Serena Williams could beat Federer or Nadal - clearly, she can't - but to make a commentary on achievements in context and remove any gender designation from the rankings.

Serena Williams at this point is untouchable for her vast array of supporters. Sally Jenkins - who has shown a career weakness for individual sports celebrities - either didn't know the context of the conversation or ignored it. A shame, because there's a more interesting conversation to have there, about the nature of that question, than the one Jenkins sought to have.

Williams' response is...anyone who enjoys tennis and has watched years of it, and Williams, is hardly surprised by that "privacy" tweet.

 

Based on my Facebook newsfeed, nobody knows the context of the conversation. Gotta be out front with the outrage, ya know.

 

I didn't think it was a big deal when I saw the "700" quote without context but now that I've actually seen the questions....jeez, I'm really wondering what in the world he was supposed to say? Extremely complimentary toward Serena, but, yeah, she'd be ranked pretty low if she played on the men's tour. I guess he could have said she wouldn't be in the top 421 and it'd be better? Top 350? He was self-deprecating. But he's also a pro athlete who's never going to admit anyone can beat him; he'd probably say he'd have a chance against Fed, today at 58. So, no, he's not going to admit he'd lose to Serena. And being a "huckster" for his book. Well, when people write books, they give interviews. They answer questions, as McEnroe did, especially when the interviewer is persistent. Sally has done the same interviews for her books. It's not evil to promote a book.

Serena's an incredible, amazing athlete, and her talents are very much appreciated and lauded by just about everyone. Getting upset about a guy who makes his living with his words and opinions stating a pretty harmless and probably entirely accurate belief is very odd.

 

Pretty standard celebrity worship for Serena Williams. Been that way for a few years.

 

And it does not violate her privacy in any way.

 

Sooooo .... did Sally Jenkins delete her Twitter account?

https://twitter.com/sallyjenx?lang=en

 

Answering a question with a question? Heathen. He gave a perfectly fine response. I don't think you even need the context to arrive at that conclusion. She would not beat anyone moderately good on the men's tour. In fact she's set to play steph curry in ping pong in a few weeks and I wouldn't bet on her there either

 

It's really quite amazing that it is somehow controversial to point out something so remarkably obvious as a factual matter - that the world's greatest male athletes are objectively faster and stronger than the world's greatest female athletes - and that doing so seems to give rise to a near-conclusive presumption in the eyes of some that the person making this observation harbors all sorts of retrograde views regarding women, no matter what his track record (for all his myriad flaws, McEnroe seems fairly enlightened on this stuff - he's always recognized how remarkable Serena's career is, and from what I recall has been on board with having men and women earn the same amount for winning major tournaments).

 

I feel like the only place he overstepped was the "700" part of the comment. Obviously I don't know for sure, but I feel like she would rank a good bit higher than that. I'm sure he was just exaggerating, but I can see how that exaggeration may have come across as a shot against Serena. Everything else seemed pretty accurate to me. And he was not the one who even brought it up.

And her "respect my privacy" response was complete bullshit. What she means is "don't talk about me unless you are heaping more praise upon me."

 

If "respect my privacy" is the weirdest thing she says during pregnancy then she'll have my wife beat.

 

"I'm not even going to ask why you have a jar of mayonnaise, the peanut butter, a head of cabbage and a pint of ice cream out on the shelf right now."

 

These "debates" are so stupid. Before anyone asks him to apologize, they should come up with the people with better tennis credentials than Johnny Mac who say Serena is the "best of all time."