Steffi edges Serena as all-time best
If you point an app that recognises birdsong at the screen when noted shrieker Victoria Azarenka is playing, she is identified as a whimbrel.
Azarenka was eventually turfed out of the nest by Serena Williams and as the American today lines up a fifth title — and 14th Grand Slam in all — talk has turned again to whether she is the finest woman player of all time. Chris Evert contends Serena might just be.
Certainly, the serve that blasted a record 24 aces past the Belarusian curlew must be the single most devastating stroke in ladies tennis history, while Steffi Graf and Martina Navratilova, at their peaks, would surely be overpowered by Williams.
But we began this year hearing how Williams never liked sports and couldn’t understand how she became an athlete. Sure she has had her injuries, but perhaps it was greater respect for the game that gave Graf and Navratilova the appetite to make their dominance tell week in, week out. Serena, after all, has rarely been her sport’s number one.
Still Steffi, for me.
