Serena Williams stakes claim for GOAT title with French Open win over Maria Sharapova

A Slam tally, like age, is just a number. Nobody in his right mind would rate Court as a better player than Graf, even though the Australian won more Slams than the German. The competition was infinitely stronger in Graf’s era than it was in Court’s, and the fact that Graf could dominate the ‘feel’ players of the 80s as well as the power players of the 90s tilts the scales heavily in her favour.

How heavily should we tilt the scales in Williams’s favour, then? She has dominated the power players (hello Maria Sharapova), the finesse players (are you listening, Agnieszka Radwanksa?), the crafty counterpunchers (I almost didn’t see you there, Caroline Wozniacki), the skilled baseline defenders (where have you been, Victoria Azarenka?), and even the occasional big servers (it was nice meeting you, Samantha Stosur). She has won Slams coming in from the cold (Australian Open 2007), on the back of a sizzling run of form (US Open 2012) and when hobbled by injury (Australian Open 2010); she has won Slams as a teenager, as a dominant World No. 1 and as a seasoned veteran.

Williams has been there and done that alright; there’s nothing in the world of tennis that she hasn’t accomplished. Her most striking claim to greatness, however, goes far beyond numbers and records. There has never been any player in history, male or female, who has turned disdainfully dispatching his or her closest rivals into such an effortless habit as Williams has. And that other effortless habit of hers, making an out-of-the-blue comeback despite being on the brink of defeat, has gained enough applause from the entire world already.

Williams may not have the numbers in her kitty to stake a claim to the ‘Greatest of All Time’ title yet, but it’s pertinent to question whether she needs those numbers at all. She is already the most dominant player to have ever picked up a racquet (at least to my mind), and with her latest triumph on her least favourite surface, she has entered rarefied air. The truly scary part, though, is that she may eventually rack up the numbers anyway; she may be 31 years old, but as has been repeatedly proclaimed recently, she is playing the best tennis of her career right now, and is showing no signs of slowing down. Could it actually be possible that her best years are still ahead of her?

A comment that I’ve heard very frequently of late is that whenever Roger Federer steps on the court these days, he creates a new record. Well, it seems that whenever Serena Williams steps on the court these days, she gets closer to leaving the women’s competition behind and jostling, instead, with the male legends of the sport. With every Slam that she wins, we are going to be less inclined to compare her with the Grafs and the Navratilovas, and more with the Federers and Nadals. In fact, there was a joke doing the rounds yesterday that it would be much fairer if the men’s and women’s finals were interchanged, with Sharapova made to play David Ferrer, and Williams pitted against Rafael Nadal.

There can be no greater compliment to the greatest tennis player of all time than that.