Face facts, women's tennis is not competitive

Oh, and more thing. I wanted to address the criticism about Serena not adding some new component to the sport. First, I do consider Serena's serve to be one of the best and most dynamic in the history of the women's game. Her ball positioning and accuracy and, yes, power, are unparalleled. But what distinguishes her from the rest of the tour is that even when her supersonic serve is not working properly, i have watched numerous matches when she has found a way to win. Her grit, especially at the big moments, is unlike anything that i have ever seen. She is an extremely tactical player and , once again, while it is easy to say that 'oh she just relies on her serve'- that is nonsense.

Ok, so this is ridiculous. I cannot believe how many forums that i have read and somehow, the minute that Serena's name is mentioned, it becomes a maelstrom. First of all, I will applaud the talent of Serena and Williams AND Justine Henin. Therefore, for those of us who are fans of Serena , be that . For those who are fans of Justine Henin, be that too. For those who respect BOTH of them, (gasp) be that too. I am a little irritated with articles that in a sublimenal way try to undermine what Serena has achieved. Whether people like it or not , Serena has won twelve gland slams - TWELVE. That's pretty darn incredible. I am not going to sit up and say . oh Serena is the greatest of all time. She had the opportunity to break Steffi' s record, but she did not. And That is OK. I think that it is easy for writers to throw her name into the mix because they know that it will generate a certain degree a discussion between those who like or respect her and those who hate her. She may not be generally gracious and yes, for the first time in FIFTEEN years , lost her temper on court. IT happened, it was improper, but get over it. She has really worked to commit herself to tennis over the past few years and, unlike most top players, actually plays doubles and wins, something she does not get enough credit for. Do i think that womens tennis is on equal footing with men's tennis- NOT YET. But its beginning to head in that direction , but stop ragging on Serena . Billie J. King gave her opinion ,but can we not hang Serena out to try for it. It should be noted that Serena is now the only other women besides Martina Navratilova to win a grand slam in three different decades. Again, love her or hate her, but i do not see alot of women (or men) for that matter accomplishing that .

excuse me but justine henin is the federer of women's game! it's insulting to speak of serena in the same sentence as roger federer.

Your arguments were not very logical. You never followed one thought to its logical conclusion. You rather hopped like a cat on hot bricks from one analogy to the other. As a woman I know that there is whole lot of difference between the men's game and the women's game. I prefer watching the men's game and you know why. Tennis is perhaps one of the very few games where men and women play different sets. More than that Serena is not the Federer of Women Tennis just as Federer is not the Serena of Men's Tennis. I doubt if Federer can come back from a two year voluntary retirement to win a tournament in his first attempt. A drug ban is a different ball game all together, because the banned player would be preparing for when the ban would be lifted. The beauty of tennis is the rallies - not aces. You were perhaps too prejudiced to think straight and respond to the article above. The truth is that Federer wins without being bashful and boastful, without claiming that he is the best. Others call him the best. That is why he is such a great guy and a role model. Serena? Great girl but her game is all about serve and when it does not work for her - like against Li Na and Azerenka - she struggles. I find it very hard to give your letter a logical response because it violated known rules of logic. Next time do not let your anger interfer with your facts.

You are right in one way Serena is on a whole different level. A full step and a half below Graf and Martina. Look up their careers sometime, Serena has a fair few grand slams to go to catch them

I think all the debate regarding the state of tennis is healthy. It makes a great read - so thanks. However, I have a slightly different opinion on the state of the current game - I love the current state of women's tennis. I love it that there are so many great women tennis players around that it is really hard to predict who will win any tournament. I think the only exception to this is when Serena is 'on fire' - there is currently no woman on tour who can match Serena's talent, strength and mental toughness. I just wanna finish off by saying that I've got high hopes that Sam Stosur finds her 'fire' this year and finds her way into the women's top 10 and wins a few more tournaments.

Would like women's games to be 5 sets - so much harder! And I still am not a fan of being able to win a match with a tie break. Maybe just me.

The article sounds like a satire to me. But the valid point is that Serena is Serena and Federer is Federer. One cannot be the other and even Serena admitted in a recent interview that she cannot play half as well as the men. But so far one argument the angry responders to this article has not addressed is – has a man ever come out of a two-year voluntary retirement (not a drug ban, for crying out aloud) to win a Slam in the men’s circuit or even play the final? Serena is a great player but not the best. Legends redefine the game and introduce skills never before imagined or played. Pele invented the bicycle kick. Mohammed Ali invented rope-a-dope style. Michael Jordan did tricks with basketball that no one has seen before. Magic Johnson in the air was a delight to watch. Johan Cryuff invented the famous Cryuff’s Turn in soccer. Mike Tyson, probably had the heaviest punch in boxing history, but the world is still talking about Ali as the greatest because he was a bundle of skills and finesse. Winning is not everything, energy and power is not everything; in tennis what makes sense is racket wizardry and footwork – not power and aces. Charles’ unfortunate article was completely intolerant and asinine. He should have addressed the facts without citing examples ten times more asinine than the ones used in the first article. And by the way, saying that Serena could have beaten Margeret Court is is as foolish as saying that today’s scientists are smarter than Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton. Einstein, Newton and Court were pacesetters and their place in history is defined by their pace setting roles.

The article sounds like a satire to me. But the valid point is that Serena is Serena and Federer is Federer. One cannot be the other and even Serena admitted in a recent interview that she cannot play half as well as the men. But so far one argument the angry responders to this article has not addressed is - has a man ever come out of a two-year voluntary retirement (not a drug ban, for crying out aloud) to win a Slam in the men's circuit or even play the final? Serena is a great player but not the best. Legends redefine the game and introduce skills never before imagined or played. Pele invented the bicycle kick. Mohammed Ali invented rope-a-dope style. Michael Jordan did tricks with basketball that no one has seen before. Magic Johnson in the air was a delight to watch. Johan Cryuff invented the famous Cryuff's Turn in soccer. Mike Tyson, probably had the heaviest punch in boxing history, but the world is still talking about Ali as the greatest because he was a bundle of skills and finesse. Winning is not everything, energy and power is not everything; in tennis what makes sense is racket wizardry and footwork - not power and aces. Charles' unfortunate article was completely intolerant and asinine. He should have addressed the facts without citing examples ten times more asinine than the ones used in the first article. And by the way, saying that Serena could have beaten Margeret Court is is as foolish as saying that today's scientists are smarter than Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton. Einstein, Newton and Court were pacesetters and their place in history is defined by their pace setting roles.

That's a fair point. It wasn't that long ago that people were claiming that the men's game wasn't competitive and that Federer was winning so many titles because the talent pool was weak.

That's great.

Have posted this before but i have it on good authority (from the horses mouth) that no ladies would be able to crack the top 500 men....... think mobility and 5 sets.

Do you even know mcuh about tennis such as who were Steffi' contemporaries. The likes of Gabbi Sabatini, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, Mary Jo Fernandez, Jana Novotna and Monica Seles Serena would wipe the floor with the first 4 and have to much power and athleticism for Seles.

This is perhaps the most asinine article on tennis that I've ever read and, believe me, there are many of them out there by so-called analysts, many of whom probably have never played the game and have no appreciation for the nuances of the sport. There's evidently a herd mentality out there where people repeat silly arguments others have uttered or published. This joke of an analysis has nothing to do with "facing facts." Let's look at the real facts. The fact of the matter is that it's the modern version of women's tennis that saved the day for the sport a few years ago when men's tennis had become extremely boring because of the dominance of the serve (Federer alluded to this in his post-match interview a couple days ago, and many of us can remember John McEnroe suggesting on several occasions back then that the sport needed to try to save itself by perhaps considering having the men going back to using wood racquets). Remember when Goran Ivanisevic got a wild card for Wimbledon in 2001 and ended up winning the whole thing solely on the strength of his serve? And all of this happened in the era of greats such as Sampras, Agassi, and even a younger Federer. Also, rather than looking at the women's game as a whole, these folks try to take selective snapshots of what they think (and very often quite foolishly) are less flattering events in the women's game and make generalizations from these in order to draw negative conclusions about women's tennis as a whole. Yet they fail to do the same with the men's game. For example, there was a lot of foolish talk after the 2009 Australian Open final that the lopsided score against the then number two player in the world (Safina only won three games in two sets) showed the sad state of women's tennis and its inferiority to the men's game (contrasting this to the thrilling five-set 2009 AO final between Federer and Nadal). But the same people who were making that argument chose to forget the 2008 French Open final when Federer won a total of four games in three sets, which means that he averaged fewer games per set than Safina had against Serena. They drew no such similar sweeping conclusions about state of the men's game after the 2008 FO final which had been played only seven months earlier. Now there's this other silly argument that the fact that former number one women's players like Kim and Justine can come back after long absenses and be so competitive proves the inferiority of the women's game. If this is so, how does one explain what happened in early 2007 when Federer was at the height of his dominance (he would win three grand slams that year and had just won the 2007 AO a few months earlier without dropping a set) and lost to Canas in two consecutive tournaments. In the first tournament, Canas (who had never been close to being number 1) had got through to the main draw as a qualiifier because he had just come off something like a 15-month drug suspension, and still he knocked the number one player out of that tournament and beat him again at another tournament only a few weeks later. And why don't we compare the women in the 2008 US Open final (Serena and Jankovic played a high quality, exciting, and entertaining match) with the men (the 2008 Federer/Murray final was uncompetitive, extremely boring, and of very low quality). The fact of the matter is one cannot take selective snapshots of this or that tournament and make sweeping generalizations that are valid. Both the current men's and women's game (which are comparable in some ways and different in others) are great and exciting to those with a reasonable understanding of the sport and no axe to grind. So let's stop this foolishness of panning one or the other with the use of these selective "facts."

This article was about the state of the women's game not about how good or bad Serena is. She was only used as an example. By the way Serena is no doubt one of the greats and I respect her alot but she is NOT the female Federer. I'm sorry but female tennis is not very good right now. Without even comparing it to the men's, you can tell that women's tennis is week. In the Australian Open, most of the women's matches were error ridden with poor shot making, some even struggling to get their second serve in! I'm an amateur and I can get my second serve in consistently with something on it. Like the writer said, it is ridiculous that 2 players who spent up to 2 years out of the game and can start winning and making finals of big tournaments right from the get go. I'm glad that Clijsters and Henin are back though, we might get a few more decent matches to watch. Thankfully there are some rays of hope. The Henin-Dementieva match was brilliant and I thought the Na Li-Serena Williams match was also very good. Henin played an absolutely flawless match in the semis as well. I missed the final but assume that with 2 great players, the tennis would have been very good. Let's just hope that some other women can match the challenge set by Henin and Clijsters.

Well, that's like, your opinion man. And one I happen to disagree with. Serena Williams is on a whole different level to the names you mentioned. None could stand up to her in their prime.

You say women's tennis isn't completive. Either is men's tennis with Roger Federer win everything. Brad there is no way Serena is going to catch Margaret court record. If you think she will your kidding yourself. Serena deserved her Aussie open win but there is the possibility that the four slams could go to four different players. Justine will get better once she played more tournaments and gets on the clay she will win the french open once again as Serena is no where near as good as Justine on clay. Venus will most likely win Wimbledon and Serena might win the us open. That makes her slam total 13 if I'm right and then she may only play another two years. Serena's domination of the tour is over.

I read your article on woemn tennis. Sounds like you just wanted to write something for the sake of writing and making a name for yourself. Otherwise your arguments about women tennis are very weak.

Serena is the female Federer. FEMALE Federer. She dominates female tennis like Roger does Mens tennis. She will end her career with more grand slam titles than any other female tennis player. She is better than Steffi Graf. Too often we place more weight on the past and our generation is short changed. Roger is a phenomenen and that is thanks too to Rafael Nadal

The only events that pay equal prize money are the four Grand Slams, the two season ending tournaments and the opens that are streamlined to have the men in town one week and the women the next. Men still make more money from the ATP tour than women do from the WTA tour and the men only play best of five sets at the Grand Slams. Considering that top tennis players make more in sponsorship than they ever do in prize money, it's the lower ranked and unseeded players that benefit from having equal prize money for playing a first or second round match. Tennis players don't get paid for how much work they do. They get paid for how many matches they win. Roger Federer got paid $100,000 more for beating Murray in three sets than Nadal got last year for beating Federer in five. There is no sport in the world that pays anyone on the basis of time spent playing. It's not always the case that the men have the tougher matches. Way back in 1968, when tennis went professional, Rod Laver received £2,500 for beating Tony Roache 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 in the Wimbledon final. Billie Jean King won £750 pounds for defeating Judy Tegart Dalton 9-7, 7-5. Serena had a tougher run to the final this year than Federer did, so I don't see how it's a case of "more" or "less." It's a case of men and women playing at the same event.