Dear Gossips,
From the very beginning of her career, when she was just a teenager, Serena Williams has been underestimated, misunderstood, disrespected – by tennis insiders, tennis commentators, tennis players, tennis fans, the media. As an athlete, she’s a lot smarter and more strategic than they ever gave her credit for, attributing her success to her physical abilities and very seldom to her mental ones. And as a person, she’s always been a lot more gracious and generous than they ever gave her credit for.
That was true then and it’s still true now, as evidenced by her new interview with TIME as part of her inclusion on the TIME 100, in the Titans category.
The piece attempts to cover all of who Serena is, and not only the G.O.A.T. in her sport. Serena is a venture capitalist though her firm, Serena Ventures – 70% of the companies that she’s invested in are founded by women or people of colour. She’s also now a minority owner in the WBNA’s expansion franchise, the Toronto Tempo. And just like she is with Serena Ventures, this is not a case of Serena throwing money at a project; she’s reportedly heavily involved in how the team is being built.
“[Serena} took part in the interview process that landed the Tempo its first general manager, former WNBA player and assistant general manager of the Phoenix Mercury, Monica Wright Rogers. Williams asked Wright Rogers what she thought was the most important aspect of player experience with the team. Wright Rogers emphasized resources for nutrition and recovery and analytics to optimize performance. “Right answer,” Williams said. She requested a follow-up conversation, one-on-one, to confirm the leadership team's hunch that Wright Rogers was the correct choice.”
Toronto, it turns out, is close to Serena’s heart – she loves it here, she won all three of her Canadian Open championships in Toronto (the tournament is also played in Montreal):
“You spend so much time at these places and get to know the insides of the city,” she says. “You get to know the restaurants, you get to know people, you get to know just festivals and all kinds of stuff. I got to know the karaoke rooms.”
Karaoke rooms, what? Am I going to run into Serena Williams the next time I go for noraebang in Koreatown?
Like I said, you don’t get to Serena’s post-tennis level without vision and preparation – she had the mind to start putting these plans in place long ago, to step away from the tennis court into the boardroom, which is never what the haters could have expected. Because, again, they never took into account that what makes her great is both her body and her mind.
But you also can’t get to where Serena is by focusing on the f-cksh-t. A Black woman like Serena knows better than anyone else that her path will always have more obstacles than the next person – and while she acknowledges this because it’s the truth, it’s never with resentment or complaint. Serena has no time to complain, she’s too busy winning.
So I did appreciate what she said about Jannik Sinner, offering him her support, rooting for his comeback, but also noting that:
“I’ve been put down so much, I don’t want to bring anyone down,” she says, adding that she’s excited to see his return to the tour, at the Italian Open in early May. “Men’s tennis needs him.” But, she says, “if I did that, I would have gotten 20 years. Let's be honest. I would have gotten Grand Slams taken away from me.” Williams says she was always extra careful about what went into her body, taking nothing stronger than Advil for fear of ingesting something that could get her in trouble. A performance-enhancing-drugs scandal would have landed her “in jail,” she says, with a laugh. “You would have heard about it in another multiverse.”
And that brings us to Maria Sharapova who had her own doping controversy. And who has also spoken disparagingly of Serena, including in her book a few years ago when she recalled beating Serena in 2004 and f-cking gloated about it:
“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.”
Let’s call that what it was: racistly reducing the greatest of all time to a combination of body parts. And Serena’s better than I am because even after all that, she actually mentioned Maria in her TIME interview, right after talking about Jannik Sinner:
“She also wonders what her contemporary and occasional rival, Maria Sharapova, is thinking. Sharapova got a two-year doping ban back in 2016 (on appeal it was reduced to 15 months), despite the fact a tennis governing body determined that her offense was, like Sinner’s, unintentional. “Just weirdly and oddly, I can't help but think about Maria all this time,” says Williams. “I can't help but feel for her.” (Sharapova declined to comment.)”
Some might read this as shady, as patronising pity but not empathy. I don’t. Because for someone like Serena, grace is the ultimate form of enlightenment. She has elevated and evolved beyond petty. And when you’re thriving the way Serena is, there’s no shade, there’s only sunshine.
So it’s interesting that Meghan Sussex comes up when Serena’s talking about her farm.
“She says that growing up in Compton, she never could have imagined a life of growing peppers and collecting eggs. “I never thought I had a green thumb,” she says.
One corner of the property houses bees. “We get so much honey it’s insane,” she says. Williams dehydrates the farm’s Moringa leaves, which are packed with antioxidants, to make tea. She is in frequent touch with her friend Meghan Markle, who has a colossal garden at her California home. “I’m always like, ‘Girl, what are you doing today?’” says Williams. “So we're trading recipes.”
Recipes for more than just honey and jam. If there’s anyone who understands rising above the toxicity, the doubt, and the hate with grace, it’s Serena Williams.
Yours in gossip,
Lainey
PS. Programming note: stat holiday in Canada tomorrow so we’re dark. Back to regular schedule on Monday.
