Maria Sharapova has a new memoir called Unstoppable, which is still funny to me considering that Serena Williams literally stopped Maria eighteen times in a row. Maria beat Serena Williams at Wimbledon in 2004, and one more time in 2004. Those two times were the only times Maria ever beat Serena. They played each other eighteen times in the twelve years after those 2004 matches, and Serena beat her every time. In those same years, Maria became the highest paid female athlete in the world, despite Serena’s consistent Slam-winning performances, despite Serena’s #1 ranking, despite Serena’s personal narrative as a true underdog, the girl from Compton with the mind of a champion, one half of the greatest sister act in the history of sports.
The Serena-Maria story/comparison is a story of race and privilege, of the elevation of white mediocrity and the narrative shifts of how champions of different races are perceived. The fact that this conversation is still happening even after we now know that Maria had been taking a performance-enhancing drug for years and was actually suspended for it, is still fascinating and disturbing. Maria was “allowed” to treat her comeback from suspension as some kind of deranged fairytale, with sports writers and ESPN commentators doing the heavy lifting to say that yes, this cheating, lying a–hole ensconced in white privilege has “so much support” and she was “just away for a year.”
Anyway, there are some additional excerpts from Sharapova’s book. We already know that Maria includes a second-hand account of how someone told her that they heard Serena call Maria a “little bitch” after the 2004 Wimbledon match. Maria has even more to say about Serena and how “thick” and “intimidating” she is. Do you hear those racist dog-whistles?
Hearing Serena cry after she lost to Maria in 2004: “I don’t think she’s ever forgiven me for it… I think Serena hated me for being the skinny kid who beat her, against all odds, at Wimbledon. I think she hated me for taking something that she believed belonged to her. I think she hated me for seeing her at her lowest moment. But mostly I think she hated me for hearing her cry. She’s never forgiven me for it.”
On Serena’s physicality and presence: “First of all her physical presence is much stronger and bigger than you realize watching TV. She has thick arms and thick legs and is so intimidating and strong. It’s the whole thing – her presence, her confidence, her personality… Even now, she can make me feel like a little girl’, Maria writes, and says she deals with it with ‘a maddening composure and a stately calm’.
I’ll quote 30 Rock’s D’Fwan: “Never talk about a black woman’s leg size, not on babies, not on the Williams sisters, not on a mannequin at Avenue.” NEVER. Obviously, “Little Bitch” Sharapova doesn’t mind some racialized and racist dog-whistles. She’s still painting herself as the innocent, doomed little white girl who can’t help but be overpowered by the BIG SCARY INTIMIDATING black woman. Maria will soon hand-deliver quotes to People Magazine about how she’s an innocent white baby and Kanye West was mean to her too.
Also: I don’t know why Sharapova thinks she’s so f–king small? She’s 6’2” and Serena is 5’9”. Everybody – especially Maria – gets so salty about Serena’s serve, arguably the greatest serve in the women’s game, of all time. Serena manages to out-serve much taller opponents like Maria all the time. You know why? Because she’s smarter than them. Not because she’s a big thick intimidating black woman.
Photos courtesy of WENN, PCN.
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