15641: Serena Williams Sells Drugs…?

 

Serena Williams for UBRELVY Migraine Medicine? And thank goodness that eligible patients may pay as little as $10 for prescriptions—heaven knows Williams could use the financial assistance.

 

If anyone wonders why Big Pharma charges ginormous prices for drugs, well, just consider the marketing production dollars required by White advertising agencies to sign A-level celebrity spokespeople.

 

It’s enough to induce major headaches…

 

 

14265: Wimbledon Wonkiness.

McCann London created this Wimbledon campaign rendered in a period style, presumably nodding to the tournament’s storied history. So why is Serena Williams depicted without spectators in the background, contrasting the images of Roger Federer and Garbiñe Muguruza? Is it because in the olden days, a Black woman would never have drawn an audience—or even been allowed to compete?

Oh, and it didn’t help that all three players depicted suffered earlier-than-expected exits in the tournament.

12976: A Grand Year.

Serena Williams is Sports Illustrated’s Sportsperson of the Year.

12046: Serena Williams Turns 18.

U.S. Open 2014: Serena Williams, Queen of Queens, Beats Caroline Wozniacki for 18th Major Title.

12041: Serena Williams Is The Greatest.

From USA TODAY…

Serena Williams ready to put stamp on greatest female athletic career

By Christine Brennan, USA TODAY Sports

Fifteen years after she won her first U.S. Open singles title as a 17-year-old, Serena Williams will try to win her sixth on Sunday. If she does, if she defeats a rejuvenated Caroline Wozniacki to win the 18th Grand Slam singles title of her career, it will be time to pose a serious sports question:

Is Williams the greatest female athlete of all time?

Or, perhaps better said: Isn’t she already?

Williams has been at or near the top of her sport longer than almost any other athlete, male or female, has ever been at or near the top of his or hers. She has earned more prize money — over $56 million — than any female athlete, ever. She has been ranked No. 1 on six separate occasions, including now. She is the most recent player, man or woman, to hold all four Grand Slam singles titles simultaneously (she did it in 2002–03).

And this sport that she’s dominating? It’s the most competitive sport women play, with stellar athletes coming out of the woodwork all over the globe, something that just doesn’t happen (at least not yet) in most women’s sports.

Others certainly have dominated tennis. The names are legendary: Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf, Chris Evert and Billie Jean King, among others.

But let’s look at the era in which Serena has been on top. It’s the most competitive time in the history of women’s tennis, with all due respect to the greats of the past and what they could (and couldn’t) do with their wooden rackets.

This is true of any women’s sport, actually. Due to the massive increase in interest, coaching, training and money in girls’ and women’s sports in the United States due to Title IX, today is the best, most competitive day in the history of every girls’ and women’s sport — until tomorrow.

So, at the most competitive time in the history of the most competitive women’s sport, Williams has been the most dominant player. For 15 years, from ages 17 to 32. Through injury and illness, some more mysterious than others. With an awe-inspiring physique and power that have set new standards for female athletes of today, and beyond. Through times of good sportsmanship — and bad. Against all comers, old and new, including her sister Venus, another one of the best there ever was, with seven Grand Slam singles titles herself.

I think I’m about to rest my case.

But first, a nod to the past.

In 1999, ESPN named its 100 greatest North American athletes of the 20th century. These were the female athletes appearing on the list: Babe Didrikson (10th place overall), Navratilova (19th), Jackie Joyner-Kersee (23rd), Wilma Rudolph (41st), Evert (50th), King (59th), Althea Gibson (65th) and Bonnie Blair (69th).

Full disclosure: I was an on-air participant in this series, but was not a voter who helped select the list. If I had been, I would have moved up Joyner-Kersee and King. Joyner-Kersee, a three-time Olympic gold medalist in the heptathlon and long jump, took on the East Germans and Soviets in their heyday and beat them at their own game, no small feat.

As for the pioneering King, without her legendary victory over Bobby Riggs in 1973, Title IX would have suffered far longer than it did from a lack of attention and implementation by our high schools and colleges.

In the 15 years since that list was compiled, more names have bubbled to the surface: Mia Hamm, Abby Wambach, Sheryl Swoopes, Lisa Leslie, Diana Taurasi, Annika Sorenstam, Missy Franklin and Gabby Douglas, to name a few.

Past and present, they’re all worthy, but none has so remarkably risen above her competition, time and again, as the best of them all, Serena Williams.

10934: Serena Williams’ Overhead Smash.

At the Australian Open, Serena Williams appeared to be rehearsing for her next iPhone commercial.

10835: Mocking Black Body Image.

From The Root…

Tennis Player Mocks Serena’s Body?

By The Root Staff

Well, this was awkward. At a recent exhibition match in Sao Paulo, 22-year-old Caroline Wozniacki stuffed her tennis outfit with padding in what many are interpreting as an imitation of Serena Williams’ body, and “made many in the audience laugh as she swung her tennis racket while displaying her fake assets,” News One reports.

The display strikes us as inappropriate, to say the least—and even more troubling when one considers the ongoing negative comments and mockery that Williams has faced because of her shape for as long as she’s been on the court.

The Olympic gold medalist, however, apparently got in on the joke, tweeting, “Hummmmm do they make Brazilian bikinis for ummm well … Me??” and “In Brazil trying to buy a Brazilian bikini.”

Is laughing it off (and winning) the best approach to scrutiny of black bodies that shows no signs of letting up?

10505: Grand Slam Or Grand Slap?

From USA TODAY…

CBS wouldn’t let Serena Williams finish her victory speech

By Chris Chase, USA TODAY

CBS didn’t allow Serena Williams to finish her victory speech Sunday after the American tennis star won her fourth U.S. Open and 15th Grand Slam title, likely due to time constraints involving the network’s lucrative Sunday night prime-time schedule.

Serena’s three-set victory over world No. 1 Victoria Azarenka, originally scheduled for Saturday night but moved to Sunday afternoon because of rain, extended into the 7 p.m. ET time slot occupied by 60 Minutes. Because of the overrun, CBS appeared to rush through the trophy presentation.

The network aired a brief interview between Serena and Mary Carillo, then showed Serena receiving her trophy and $1.9 million winner’s check. Serena wasn’t interested in the money, nor in the congratulatory words delivered by the check’s presenter.

“Do I get to say anything else?,” Serena asked Carillo while she was handed the check.

“One second,” Carillo said.

Serena was whisked away for a photo with Azarenka and CBS cut to commercial. When the coverage returned, it was only for a quick wrap-up and brief plug for Monday’s men’s final. Coverage ended without Serena getting to say what she wanted.

We understand that advertising dollars are what makes the sports world go round. Tennis, without a plethora of built-in breaks in action like football or basketball, isn’t an easy sport on which to run advertisements. But surely CBS could have given Serena an extra 30 seconds. She’s not a faceless European player unknown to mass American audiences, she’s the queen of American tennis. I’m not saying they needed to let her filibuster, but a little sound bite couldn’t have hurt.

It’s not as if the network was rushed to get to 60 Minutes. CBS ran more than eight minutes of commercials and 60 seconds of tennis filler from the time the trophy presentation stopped airing to the time 60 Minutes came on air.

9864: Boycotting Boos & Bias.

From The Los Angeles Times…

No love for this tennis tournament

Memories of a mostly white crowd booing Serena Williams still sting 11 years later.

By Michelle Maltais, Los Angeles Times

The California desert sun can be relentlessly unforgiving. So too, it seems, can the tennis powerhouse Williams sisters.

Eleven years have passed since Serena Williams was greeted with a booming chorus of boos in the women’s finals and left for good. Venus did the same. And with the two-week BNP Paribas Open underway this week at the Indian Wells Tennis Gardens, still no sisters.

“Even now, all these years later, we continue to boycott the event,” Serena wrote in her 2009 autobiography. “It’s become a mandatory tournament on the tour, meaning that the WTA can fine a player if she doesn’t attend. But I don’t care if they fine me a million dollars, I will not play there again.”

I can say from my own seat in the stands that day that this isn’t a simple case of thin skin but of skin color.

In 2001, tennis fans were abuzz over the chance of a Williams vs. Williams matchup. Everyone was talking about it in my hometown of Palm Desert too.

In the quarterfinals, Serena dominated defending champ Lindsay Davenport 6-1, 6-2, while Venus rolled over Elena Dementieva 6-0, 6-3. To the delight of the crowd — and ESPN, which was to broadcast the final weekend matches — the sisters would face off in the semifinals the next day.

But come Saturday, Venus pulled out just before the match. Her tendinitis had flared up again, she said. Tournament organizers, nearly 12,000 ticket-holders and ESPN were stunned, angry — and scrambling.

What also flared up again was the persistent rumor that Richard Williams, the sisters’ outrageously eccentric father and coach, was the puppet master, deciding when they would play each other and who would win.

On Sunday, the finals put Kim Clijsters and Serena Williams at center court.

Questions of race are never easy to answer. What happened that day only brought questions.

The start was ominous. As Venus and her father made the long walk to their courtside seats, the crowd of nearly 16,000 greeted them with bellowing jeers.

Paul Netter, who is black, was there with his wife and described the scene as “something I hadn’t ever experienced in a sporting event. Something on a whole different level. … Very venomous, very loud, with a kind of personal angle.”

I remember watching it unfold in what felt like slow motion, as if I were walking the gantlet with the Williamses. Because I was raised in the Coachella Valley, I wasn’t bothered that my brown skin stood out in the sea of sun-kissed pink skin.

But in a crowd with that much animosity, frankly, I was scared.

Suddenly, the color of my skin seemed to matter. My eyes were mostly locked on Richard Williams. I took my cues from him. If he and Venus left, I wasn’t going to stick around.

Read the full story here.

9819: BHM 2012—USTA.

USTA.com serves up a slamming BHM message.

7470: Diva Is A Female Version Of A Huckster.

Diet like a Diva? Dumb.

7361: Championship Period.

Male professional athletes always boast of playing through injuries and illnesses. Can’t recall any press conferences where a female professional athlete bragged about performing through the pains of her period. Plus, are there multicultural versions of this ad? Is Danica Patrick racing with cramps? Is Michelle Wie bogeying while bloated?

6903: Closing Notes On The Fourth Of July.

Perhaps society has grown so accustomed to things like Twitter and TMZ—with the instant delivery of news and short bursts of mindless content—that we fail to appreciate and savor the true historic moments.

On July 4, 2009, Serena and Venus Williams staged another groundbreaking event by dueling at Centre Court, with the younger sister picking up her third Wimbledon title.

And as Harry Webber pointed out, advertisers and media failed to recognize “the importance of celebrating the first Fourth of July since the birth of our nation—the very first—when we could tell our children, ‘Yes. You can grow up to be President.’ And know it to be true, deep down in your heart.”

5833: Breaking New Records And Barriers.

A women’s and girl’s movement in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• Cartoon above by Nick Anderson from the Houston Chronicle.

• Ellen DeGeneres and Portia De Rossi were married yesterday at their home in Beverly Hills. No word if Barack Obama danced with the bride.

• Venus and Serena Williams won their second career Olympic doubles title via a 6-2, 6-0 victory over the team from Spain. No word how the Spain team responded.