Someone who may be regarded as the best female tennis player ever and one of the greatest ever regardless of gender, Serena Williams has faced doubters and haters that diminish her accomplishments. She has 23 grand slam singles titles to her name, and her last one was won when she was two months pregnant. She also holds 16 additional grand slam titles in doubles and mixed doubles, bringing her total to 39 grand slam titles, the most of any active player and of anyone in the open era, and she has four olympic gold medals on top of these titles. She is one of two women to win a golden slam, winning all of the Grand Slam titles and a gold medal Her athleticism and strength is unmatched in the sport and frankly in any women’s sport. She is a badass. However, her personal life gets ridiculed and picked over, just like any other woman athlete, but arguably more because she is so good. Even if she won every title ever, which she basically has, the media would still say that she is too muscular or discredit her achievements because of her race or pick apart what she wore on the court instead of what she did.

For instance, at the 2018 French Open, Williams wore a catsuit. She wasn’t the first tennis player to do so, as Anne White did so at the 1985 Wimbledon tournament, which has the strictest dress code of any tournament, but she received praise for hers because she was thin.

Serena wore a short catsuit at the 2002 US Open, and got a completely different response, with people saying it was too risqué and a trashy way to dress. Was it because of her body type? Definitely. Even her race? Absolutely. Either way, the media spun the attention off of her playing at the tournament that she won and made everything about how she was wearing an “unflattering” outfit. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with what she wore, and I think she looks way better than White did.

This brings us back to 2018. Williams wore a full, black catsuit at the French Open that made her look like a superhero and was supposed to help her blood circulation because she has suffered from blood clots in the past and more recently after giving birth, and the French Tennis Federation BANNED catsuits from being worn in their tournaments. Yeah, you heard that right. Banned. Because they are seen as “unprofessional”.

Anyways, it is a little ironic how I am talking about what Williams has been wearing, but it is only to point out the double standard in the media. When does a white woman get criticized and compared to animals when she plays a sport? When has there been a controversy surrounding what a male wore at a tennis tournament, or in any sport for that matter? When has the media paid more attention to what a male did outside of a sport than on how he was actually playing? When was a male criticized for the emotions they show as they play?

At the 2018 US Open finals, Williams had a call against her where she got into an argument with the umpire who docked her a whole game, which caused her to lose the second set. She called the umpire a “thief”, which is trivial compared to what some men in different sports say to referees. If men get angry during their sport, it’s expected and is barely talked about as a defining point in their career. But when a woman gets mad, it is highlighted more than how she was playing.

She went as far as breaking her racket after one of the sets, and this was covered in the media as Williams being too aggressive, even though many men do this all the time. For example, Novak Djokovic comes to mind as a male who gets angry on the court and has smashed many rackets (google his name and smashed racket and tons of tournament stories come up), but he is known as one of the greats, and when she does it, she is ridiculed for having strong emotions.

Unfortunately, it seems like Williams may always receive this harsh criticism no matter what she does. She recently had a child, and many news sources said she would never recover from this and be able to play at the same level she once did. However, a mere two and a half years later, she has been in four Grand Slam finals and is ranked at number nine in the world. Some may see this as a “lower level” of play, but at 38 years old, Williams is still rocking. She is not showing any signs of retiring, and she sure as hell won’t be taking anything from media outlets who bash her. She truly is the greatest of all time.