Serena Williams is retiring after the U.S. Open. We talk about why she isn't just the greatest female tennis player of all time, but one of the greatest athletes, period.
In 1999 in New York, Serena Williams won her first major tennis title at the U.S. Open. Everyone knew she was gonna be a star in the sport and a transformational one too, but few thought she would become the greatest of all time.
Today, we talk about the legacy of Serena Williams, not just as an athlete, but as a woman — a Black woman. And what’s next for the tennis icon. Read the full transcript here.
Host: Gustavo Arellano
Guests: Broadcast journalist Cari Champion
More reading:
Column: Serena Williams makes a conscious choice to give up tennis and focus on her family
Column: The mind of Serena Williams
LA Times Today: Serena Williams’ legacy on and off the court
Clip: Tennis has a new queen, and she is 17-year-old Serena Williams.
Clip: That was pretty exciting. You know, I was thinking, should I scream or should I yell or should I cry or should I, or what should I do?
Clip: It was the first appearance in a Grand Slam final for Williams.
Gustavo: In 1999 in New York, Serena Williams won her first major tennis title at the U.S. Open. Everyone knew she was going to be a star in the sport – and a transformational one, too. But few thought she would get this big
Clip: Serena Williams moves a step closer to a record-tying 24th Grand Slam title and sets another record along the way
Clip: Against a player like her, you have to have your game, you have to not make that many mistakes.
Clip: When I'm playing on the court with her, I think I'm playing like the best competitor in the game.
Gustavo: Now, heading into next week's U.S. Open. Serena's going to grace those courts in New York City one last time before she retires from tennis. She's leaving the sport as not just one of the best female tennis players of all time, but one of the greatest sports champions of all time, period. And don't just take my word for it. Take it from other leaders in the sport, like Pam Shriver.
Pam Shriver: She was able to win majors as a teenager in 1999 at the U.S. Open throughout the next really two decades after that is astounding. It is a brutally tough sport to play physically, mentally, emotionally. They'll be talking about the career of Serena 100 years from now, 200 years from now.
Gustavo: I'm Gustavo Arellano. You're listening to The Times, essential news from the L.A. Times. It's Friday, August 26th, 2022. Today, we talk about the legacy of Serena Williams, not just as an athlete, but as a woman, a Black woman. And what’s next for the tennis icon.
Cari Champion is a broadcast journalist who previously worked for ESPN Sports Center and hosted her own sports show with journalist Jamele Hill on CNN. Cari, welcome to The Times.
Cari: Thank you for having me.
Gustavo: OK, so we gotta start with just the basics of Serena's career because they are so extraordinary. So how many titles has she won? What era has she played in? How much money has she made? All of that stuff.
Cari: Well, the basics of the illustrious career of Serena Williams, still hard to believe that she's retiring. She has 23 Grand Slams. That includes two Serena slams. She's made over $94 million in prize money spanning her two-decade career. She turned pro when she was 14 and now we find her in a class of her own. She has really given tennis her all, and she's, in the same time, been able to open the world of tennis, a very white world to a Black and brown world. And for that, I'm forever grateful.
Gustavo: Yeah. You mentioned a Serena slam. What's a Serena slam?
Cari: Yeah, I'm talking the tennis, right? Like, you know it. There's such a thing as a calendar slam where you win all four slams, which are the U.S. Open, the Australian Open, the French Open and Wimbledon. You win that in a calendar. Serena didn't quite win that in her calendar year, but twice throughout her career, she held all four titles, the only other person who was able to do that was Steffi Graf. That just explains how difficult it is to play on the tour, how difficult it is to be consistently excellent. And how it is rare, two women in the history of tennis have been able to do it. Not Billie Jean King, not Christine Evert, not Lindsay Davenport, all the greats that we hear of: Monica Seles, Martina Hingis. It was Serena Williams and Steffi Graf.
Gustavo: I mean, if that's not a GOAT, I don't know what is. And Serena's such a greatest of all time to the point that when she announced her retirement, it wasn't through ESPN or Sports Illustrated, or even at a press conference, but in Vogue, the fashion magazine. Why there?
Cari: I think that's on brand. For two reasons. One, I think LeBron made it OK to give it to a magazine. But he didn't say what type of magazine when he announced he was returning home. He just did it in a Sports Illustrated article, which I thought was amazing. For Serena Vogue is apropos. Anyone who is familiar with the world of tennis may often see this woman by the name of Anna Wintour in the stands rooting for whomever, ’cause she is a die-hard tennis fan, editor at large for Vogue. There is this movie, “[The] Devil Wears Prada,” loosely based on her and how amazing she is and how tough she is and how she likes what she likes. And one of the things that she likes is tennis. More specifically, Serena.
When Serena and Venus first came onto the scene, and very few people would recognize that they were powerhouses, that this was the next generation of tennis.Take it or leave it. Anna Wintour was bold enough to do a spread on these two little girls from Compton. And I remember them being dressed in these ball gowns, these beautiful luxurious floor length gowns with their braids and their beads. And it was high couture excellence. And I loved every moment of it.
I believe a relationship had been born at that moment that has blossomed over the years. You can find Serena in many Vogue magazines, on the cover, articles about her, who she is. And it also talks about how she did everything, which was on her own terms. Nothing has ever been said, “Serena, you must do it this way,” ’cause she's gonna do it the opposite way, which is announce my retirement in Vogue.
Gustavo: What a way for Serena to go out, especially given just the entirety of her life. I know there was just a movie made about Serena and her sister Venus and their father, Richard, played by Will Smith, who of course won an Oscar for that role, that got into those early years. And I'm from SoCal, so I remember seeing Serena and Venus from the start, but not everyone is from SoCal or saw the movie. So what's Serena's origin story?
Cari: Serena grew up in Compton; and I put an asterisk next to Compton and growing up there because I feel as if we really pay close attention to what her father, Richard Williams, was trying to do for his wife and his daughters, he was trying to create an environment, some sort of haven, in what many people consider a concrete jungle. Compton is a city in Los Angeles, and Los Angeles County more specifically, that is known for drive-bys and gangsters and a really, really hard life. It's not a place that you want to visit if you don't live there. Most people who live there are coming from a low economic backgrounds, little to no education. And there is a sense for many people who live in Compton, a sense of disparity. And I speak on this because that's where my mother grew up. And very few people are, are highlighted or make it out of the jungle if you will. And when they do, people own that: you are Compton's own. I can think of NBA players, DeMar DeRozan is from Compton, he's Compton's own. I remember one time I asked Siri, tell me someone who is famous out of Compton and it was Serena Williams and Venus Williams. And so what Richard was able to do was create a haven, and by that I mean he kept them very sheltered. He did not allow the girls to have, not necessarily did not allow them, but they didn't have other friends. They didn't hang out with their neighbors. They didn't play games across the street with their friends. It was all of the sisters, and Serena and Venus. And those were their friends. That was their playtime. That's what they did. Richard moved the family from Compton in 1991 to Florida for various reasons, but primarily so that these young ladies, Venus and Serena, could pursue their tennis careers.
Gustavo: What was it about tennis that Richard latched onto as a way of thinking this is what's gonna make my daughters into the superstars that they absolutely can be?
Cari: It's so interesting that you ask me that question, because I've been asked that over and over again. And I even asked Venus once when I interviewed her for one of her books that she wrote, I said what was it about tennis? Why was Richard so drawn to tennis? And she said my dad always liked tennis. She was like, but the legend has it that, and this is not necessarily written in stone, but Margaret Court was a famous tennis player, who at one point in time, I was told, inspired Richard Williams to make sure his daughter played. But she was a very dominant tennis player. She won 24 Slams.
There was a tournament and he was watching Margaret Court win a Virginia Slims tournament. Virginia Slims, back in the day, you could be sponsored by cigarettes. And so the Virginia Slims tournament, and he watched after a week, ’cause it was just a week back then. Margaret Court, took home $20,000 for winning the tournament at the end of the week. And the funny story is he was like, “$20,000 for a week worth of work? All right, I'm in.” And so he wanted his daughters to play tennis. All of them played tennis, in fact. Some were more talented than others. The sister who passed away, Yetunde, she played tennis, and Richard tells the story of how great she was. And I remember Serena and Venus always talking about what a great tennis player she was. It was in their family and he saw what many of us didn't see.
It takes a genius who might be borderline eccentric to say, I want my daughters to play in this lily white sport, and I want them to excel and they will be great. And that was his vision.
The goal had always been, especially when Serena got a new coach, the goal was always to match if not surpass Margaret Court to just solidify her GOAT-ness, if you will. Every opportunity in which she has had to surpass Margaret Court, she could not cross that finish line. I think 2018 was her real last opportunity in the final in which she lost to Naomi Osaka, which is why there were so many different emotions happening there. But Serena saw this record within reach, and it just slipped away. And I think that had to be extremely painful for someone who hates losing. Most athletes hate losing, but Serena is one of those rare athletes. She doesn't remember the wins. She just remembers the losses.
Clip: She's a real competitor, probably even more than what I am as far as it when it comes to losing. She hates to lose. And so that really hurts her deep.
Cari: She's even been quoted as saying sometimes, and especially when she was in her prime, sometimes I don't even think I lost as I'm walking to the net to shake hands. I'm like, did that just happen? Did I really just lose?
Clip: I think everyone in general plays the match of their lives against me. So I just have to always, every time I step on the court, be a hundred times better. And if I'm not, then I'm in trouble.
Cari: Because she's so locked in. And so laser focused on being the best.
Gustavo: They obviously had so much talent, the whole family, but how did tennis welcome Serena and Venus – and the whole Williams family, for that matter?
Cari: Oh, my goodness. Tennis, even to this day – and they can argue with me, if you will. But even to this day, I feel like a sport that has given her so much, whether that be financially, worldly, culturally, traveling around the world, never really appreciated her or her sister. It is with great sadness that I watch old clips and I see the disdain that the audience and the fans of tennis, American fans more specifically, had for these American tennis players.
Clip: Welcome to viewers, Trump British Eurosport. It's an amazing sound here. A crescendo of “boos” for Serena Williams. An American crowd booing an American family.
Cari: They weren't welcomed, they were foreign. They were not familiar. They wore beads, which is something that I grew up with when I was a kid. My mother would braid my hair and put beads, it was a style. And they hit the scene and they were unapologetic about their Blackness, the way they looked, the way they talked, the way they, the way that they were very comfortable in their own skin, in a world that did not welcome them. And I owe a lot of that to Richard. He prepared them mentally. In his book, he wrote about how he would pay kids to call them the N-word while they were practicing in Compton so that you know what you're getting into. This sport doesn't love you, but you will love it. And it will change your life.
Gustavo: Yeah, there was an infamous incident early on in their careers at Indian Wells, which it's not one of the big Slam tournaments, but still a prestigious tournament out in the desert in Southern California.
Cari: I've covered Indian Wells several times. I used to work for Tennis Channel. That was one of my first big tournaments that I covered. And I remember the lead up to Indian Wells was about how great it is just outside of Palm Springs. It's a wonderful place to hang out, you're gonna love it. It is a place where I think players love to play, because there is such a relaxed environment. Everything is outdoors, you can walk around. The fans love it because you can interact with your favorite player depending on the day or the time they're just walking around the grounds. But when I started to work at Tennis Channel and cover Indian Wells, it might have been 2010, and I was told right away, you will never see Serena and Venus here, ever. And that is because in 2001, they were accused of cheating. Richard was accused, their father, was accused of rigging the matches. So when the girls had to play one another one would lose or one would win. And it was alleged that he'd pick who would win and who would not. And so the day of the final on which Serena was in the final, as Venus and her dad walk into the stadium, you can hear these boos, visible, loud boos.
Clip: And there's father Richard coming down. It's quite amazing. Joe Giron beside me, Simon Reed, there’s Venus.
Cari: You could see people throwing things. You could see the faces of the spectators with their arms crossed and their disapproving looks. And it was so obvious that commentators had to say, this feels a bit odd. An American crowd booing American tennis players. And to his credit, the commentator who had the call said…
Clip: And you have to say that it does smack of a little bit of racism. Oh wow. I'm just speechless. I've never heard this before, ever, and I've been on the circuit, or was on circuit for quite a long time.
Cari: Hey, friend, it wasn't a hint. They hit her over the head with the racism. It was a racket hit over the head with racism. And at one point their father, while listening to the boos, throws his hand up, like with the fist, the Black power, the national Black power sign, because he was like, you will not break me nor will you break my kids.
Cari: And from that moment on, Serena goes on to win in spite of it all. And again, back to Richard and training them for a world that wasn't gonna love them.
Clip: Fathers and parents know what's best to do for their child. They try to safeguard them and keep them kind of, so to say in a bubble. So, you know, if something hits it, it just bounces off and you say, I won't even be able to feel it.
Cari: She wins, and her and her sister vow never to play that tournament, until 14 years later. She actually talked about it on a Red Table Talk and she said, coming back at a lot of trepidation, she was like, I was stressed. ’Cause I remember after I won, we weren't celebrating. The realization is that I'm so good at this, and I love it so much and it's gonna change my life as it has already, but they will never accept me for who I am. Or my sister, or my family.
Clip: In one of the more controversial matches of recent years, Williams has come back to win the title for the second time. She was booed loudly when she walked on court and then again when the player introductions were made. It didn’t stop there because when her father and sister took their seats, the huge crowd showed their disapproval once more.
Cari: And that to me has to be the most heartbreaking thing, to come to a realization to a such young age. It is letting you know, no matter what you do, you still won't be accepted. And I believe from that moment on, that was the Serena Williams we've come to know and love. I believe from that moment on, she wore armor that protected her. And while people would say she was angry or she wasn't nice, or she was this, it was because she had tried to play their game. She had tried to win how you want me to win, and without very much appreciation. In fact, she was ostracized for her greatness.
Gustavo: We'll have more after the break.
Gustavo: Cari, you used to be a reporter for the Tennis Channel, as you said earlier. Were there any memorable moments for you watching Serena?
Cari: Tennis, much like it did for Serena, gave me new life experiences. And the very first time that I was able to cover the French Open, I had my very first interaction with Serena. And it wasn't on the court, it was at a restaurant in Paris. This sounds very fancy, but there's a famous Indian restaurant called Annapurna, that most go to, they love this restaurant – they being the tennis players. Andre Agassi, he writes about it in his book. It's where you go and you get together and you basically decide your strategy, how you're gonna move, what you're gonna do. And I remember being in this restaurant, ’cause it was amazing, and Serena walked in. And I remember thinking, this woman is powerful. She is a specimen to behold in the sense of, everything about her seemed unreal. Her strength, her grace, her class, her femininity. But yet still this very powerful rage that has her knowing that she is arguably the most confident player there is in this generation on the court, killing the game in such a great way. And she was friendly, but Serena wasn't always friendly. I caught her in a moment where there were a few smiles, but Serena was always business. If I saw her around the stadium or if I saw her at any of the facilities, whether it be at the U.S. Open or perhaps another Slam, another tournament, the Miami Open, she was very much to herself. Her family and her friends, very few were all she had and that's all she cared to have. Because again, I do believe she knew what the assignment was.
Gustavo: Yeah. And that assignment, she conquered again and again on the court. But she also did the same off of it with just the money that she made, not just what her winnings, but also all the sponsorships and what she did with that money.
Cari: Serena, arguably today, is the highest-paid athlete, female athlete that is. That is one thing that I do love about the fight for equal pay in tennis is that these women go out there and they fight just as hard as the men, and they get paid on par, not necessarily exactly, but on par, and Serena has benefited from that greatly. I would be remiss if I didn't say at one point in her career when she had arguably 10 more Slams that Maria Sharapova was the highest paid, Madison Avenue preferred Maria Sharapova versus Serena Williams, and I'll tell you why. Chrissy Evert said this, and she said, they're just fascinated with blonds. I benefited from it, and there was more to it.
Gustavo: Yeah.
Cari: It wasn't that they were just fascinated with blonds. They thought Serena couldn't sell the same things that Maria Sharapova could sell. You will never in your life see that happen to a male athlete. Michael Jordan, they didn't say, you know what? These sneakers, I don't think you're gonna do it. We're gonna give this deal to Larry Bird. I'm making up something. We're gonna give this deal to someone else who doesn't look like you. Serena was always penalized for being a woman and having a very unapologetic attitude about who she was. She never compromised herself and that's for better or for worse. And in so many sports, we accept our heroes. We accept them that way. We accept John McEnroe. She highlighted that when she was fined, that outrageous fine, for threatening the line judge. She said, this man has made a career, John McEnroe, off of yelling at people and treating people poorly and being a brat on the court. He is a legend and he has been rewarded and yet and still, here I am fighting for equality in a world in which I am the GOAT and it's undisputed.
Gustavo: And it was like tennis couldn't just focus on what she did on the court. So much of the focus that I saw over the years was on her body. Like especially women's tennis. You'll always have, “Oh, you know, she's prettier, she's blond” or whatever. But with Serena was an obsession about her body. Why?
Cari: It was an obsession about her body because it wasn't mainstream or what America told us what was beautiful or what we saw in the magazine covers or the models that we watched or the supermodels that we admired. Serena was built like a Black woman. And for so many people, this is their first time seeing that type of power and body on a national stage. And if you're unfamiliar with it, you know, your first resource, which is a simple resource, is to criticize. And Serena to me was always criticized for what she looked like, especially overseas. When she was overseas, they'd be like, her and her sister look like men. How disrespectful.
Clip: The Herald Sun newspaper has printed an edited portion of the cartoon featuring Williams jumping on a broken racket during her dispute with a chair umpire in the U.S. Open final. The newspaper has defended cartoonist Mark Knight’s depiction of Williams and is asserting the condemnation is driven by political correctness. Critics of Knight's cartoon describe it as a clear example of a stereotype facing Black women, depicting Williams as an irate Black woman losing her cool.
Cari: And we've seen that time and time again. When Michelle Obama was the first lady, they called her names. It is such a sad state of our society, when we feel like different is unattractive. And Serena, to her credit, has been doing it on her terms, pushing the envelope from the catsuit to catsuit. They've implemented rules, the French Open implemented a rule because her catsuit was not quote-unquote dignified. It wasn't appropriate.
Clip: Serena Williams was wearing a purple top and teal tennis skirt for practice at the U.S. Open on Saturday after the French Tennis Federation found her form-fitting black catsuit too risque to wear in the future.
Cari: Who is the person that sits in the office and says, yeah, that's too sexy. She can't help her body.
Clip: She respects their decisions and joked that she would not want to wear the catsuit again anywhere. I've since found other methods, and when it comes to fashion, you don't wanna be a repeat offender. So it'll be a while before this even has to come up again.
Cari: And what Serena had to endure, when all she wanted to do was play tennis, is mind blowing. Because the drama always was leading up to when she got there or after she played, after every match, it was always something, whether it was her fist pump or whether she was too loud or if she argued too much, or if she stood there in a certain way and she didn't talk to the chair ump the right way.
Clip: The $17,000 fine stems from three code violations Serena Williams received during her loss to Naomi Osaka in the U.S. Open final. Verbal abuse of the chair umpire, coaching and breaking her racket. The WTA, along with Williams and critics inside and outside of tennis, argued that she was not treated the same as some male players.
Cari: It would be written about, think pieces about her behavior.
Clip: In addition, men's champion Novak Novakovic said he thought the chair umpire who Williams argued with should not have pushed her so hard.
Gustavo: I was gonna mention the fashion because, here's Anna Wintour, a legend in fashion, embracing the William sisters from the start. And yet anytime Serena did her fashion on the court, she got criticized. I remember in 2004, she wore a skirt, got criticized. She wore a two-piece sportswear thing and got criticized. A catsuit that you mentioned during the 2018 French Open. And she wore it to help her circulation and blood clots that she had, still got criticized. How did Serena deal with all this bull–?
Cari: I go back to just her strong family upbringing. I think Richard Williams, say what you want about him, he really instilled two things: You matter, and they don’t. He was fiercely protective of them. You remember the ABC interview where the interviewer says to Venus in particular, do you think you can win, a 14-year-old Venus going to play Wimbledon? Do you think you can win? And she said, yes, very confidently. And then he asked her again and he kept prying, and I knew what he was doing as a reporter, but the father did not like the optics of this white man telling his 14-year-old daughter over and over again: Are you sure you can? Are you sure you can do it? He stops the interview and he said, she told you once very confidently “yes.” This is a 14-year-old little girl. Do not keep asking her. Do not fill her head with that.
Clip: When she say something, we done told you what's happened, you know, with a little Black kid, and let her be a kid just with a lot of confidence, leave that alone.
Cari: And if you are that fiercely protective over your child's mental, how could they not turn out to be so strong and disciplined? And no one, no one's a robot. It's not to say that she hasn't had her moments where we've seen her melt down and lose it and be upset and probably go into hiding. Rightfully so. But that foundation was already built, and Richard was fiercely protective over his daughters because he knew he was sending them into, for lack of a better term, a lion’s den, a den that did not want you. And he knew that they would excel and they would be great and their greatness would be resented.
Gustavo: I think in many ways, the culmination of that foundation, as you talked about, was Serena's pregnancy. When she won the Australian Open title in 2017, while pregnant, she told the world about how, all the troubles and struggles that she had to deal with as a woman, as a Black woman, trying to win and trying to do her job.
Cari: In 2017, Serena won the Australian Open while pregnant. She says she didn't know she was. That even makes her more of a badass, if you ask me. But she goes on to have this beautiful baby, and not many of us at the time knew what she was dealing with in terms of the stress of giving birth and feeling as if her voice wasn't heard. The Black maternal death rate is really high. Mothers, Black mothers, more specifically, are often said to be ignored when in the hospital. They said that they believe – and these are studies, you can look them up – that they believe the people are ignoring them because they don't think they know any better. Serena came out not long after her daughter turned, I think, maybe a year old, and talked about the difficult pregnancy that she had. And how she was in the hospital demanding that she'd be treated a certain way. Now, who wants to deal with that during labor? Like, no one wants to deal with that, but that's what she felt like she was being ignored and they were very, they being the nurses and perhaps the doctors, were very dismissive of her.
But not only was Serena fighting that war, if you will, on that front. She didn't like the idea that she had to lose her ranking. As she so eloquently points out, I should not be penalized for giving birth. At that time, if you gave birth, and it's happened to many women we've seen on the tour, you lose your ranking. I remember Kim Clijsters, a U.S. Open champion, fought really hard to get seating at the U.S. Open after she gave birth. And Serena made such a fuss, rightfully so, that they changed the rules. Because in essence, you are saying, if you decide to have a baby, your career suffers. What kind of message is that that you're sending? And Serena tackled it head on and they changed it. Kudos to her, right? Because it just makes sense. She is a trailblazer in so many ways and oftentimes we forget the good, I believe, that she's done for the sport.
Serena is every Black woman. She is the Black woman that is sitting on this podcast, recording with you. She is me. She is my mother. She is my neighbor. She's every Black woman in an environment that doesn't understand them. And when we play the game and try to ingratiate ourselves in a world that does not understand us, when we play the game and try to make everyone else comfortable around us, there does come a time when you get fed up and you're just exhausted. And I'm not even talking about the physicality of it all, but the mental aspect was far more difficult for her, I believe, than the actual physicality. Going out there and winning in straight sets to me was something she could do in her sleep. ’Cause she had been here before and she was prepared for the moment. She could not deal with, at every turn, was criticizing her for something, they would not even pay attention to what someone else did. Meeting Serena, not thinking that she was very warm and fuzzy, because I thought that's what she had to be – to later appreciating her, especially as I worked at ESPN later, appreciating her and changing the narrative of her being angry. It's her surviving.
Gustavo: And now you have a new generation of Black tennis stars, like Naomi Osaka and Coco Gauff. And they're calling out sexism and racism and all the other troubles of tennis. What do they and others say about what Serena had to go through? Like this whole idea that Serena ran so that they could walk.
Cari: It's interesting because Naomi Osaka beat Serena Williams in the 2018 U.S. Open. And I was watching that video back today and the image of two Black women, take it or leave it, and I know Naomi represents for Japan, but two Black women crying at the trophy presentation, the crowd booing. And either they were booing for Serena or booing for Naomi, there was a, it felt very split, it felt very divided. And Naomi just cried and Serena embraced her and hugged her and then said, guys, can we stop the booing. That was Serena the mother that we saw.
Naomi Osaka clip: I felt a little bit sad because I wasn't really sure if they were booing at me or, or if it wasn't the outcome that they wanted. And then I also could sympathize because I've been a fan of Serena my whole life, and I knew that how badly the, the crowd wanted her to win. So I don't know, I was just really emotional.
Cari: Serena, prior to having a child, probably wouldn't have embraced Naomi. Serena has said many times, I hate losing more than I do winning. I can't even enjoy it. I cannot enjoy the win until I get more and more; it's addictive. But the imagery of a world, in the world this case is the fans inside of Flushing Meadows, putting two Black women against each other, pitting them against one another for something that really truly didn't need to happen. It would've been really classy if the fans just could have clapped for everybody. But what Serena did in that moment is usher in a new generation, ’cause I felt she knew her time was up or at least coming up. And that is for Sloane Stephens, Naomi Osaka, Coco Gauff; they are now the ones that you look to, specifically for American tennis, Coco Gauff and Sloane. But what I often look back on is that we'll never have, and I believe this, we'll never have another great. Two decades of dominance. She made it so easy for Sloane to be appreciated and get marketing deals and make money. She made it so easy for Coco Gauff to get her first New Balance deal at 16 years old. Like Coco is making money ’cause Serena had to make the money. Same for Naomi Osaka, she's one of the highest paid. This is unheard of before Serena and Venus came along. And so we're watching the changing of the guard, an end of era.
Gustavo: We'll have more after the break.
Taylor Townsend: Me being able to be out here and compete against Serena, share the courts with her, share amazing stadiums. It's been absolutely amazing. More than anything, representation, being able to see that it's possible for me to be able to accomplish the things that she was doing. I think just her legacy of being fierce and being able to silence the haters. I think that's the biggest thing. Being able to let the racket speak for herself and allowing her results to speak for herself has been the thing that I've connected with the most, because what people have said has never allowed or stopped her from doing anything.
Gustavo: That’s tennis player Taylor Townsend on what Serena’s legacy means to her. And on that note, Cari, let’s do a lightning round. So when you think of Serena’s legacy, what are you thinking?
Cari: I'm gonna use an acronym, but it's also an animal: She's a GOAT to me. Not the best female tennis player of all time, but she is top five, top two best athlete in the world.
Gustavo: What's the importance of her coming from Compton?
Cari: I think visually it shows that we all can do it. Visually it shows if you see it, you can believe it. Representation is important. And it's also important to know that your upbringing or your surroundings don't necessarily dictate where you end in life or what you'll do in life. You can transcend so many decisions that were made before you were even born.
You can transcend bad choices, good choices. You are not your final choice. And I think when I look at someone who was raised in Compton, albeit for a little bit of time, I knew the father had a plan to change their life. And he saw this vision so crystal clear that everyone in the house had to get on board. And this is the end result, giving us Serena Williams, the GOAT.
Gustavo: Finally, Cari, what do you want to see Serena do next?
Cari: I want to see her not retire. I want to see her, I want to see her still play. I am very selfish in my quest for her to surpass Margaret Court’s match. Right? But I think next for Serena is gonna be tough because she's been doing this her entire life.
I feel like we're gonna see a give-back Serena. As you get older, you realize what really matters. And she's not necessarily thinking about her legacy, but she knows there's more that she can give.
Gustavo: Cari, thank you so much for this conversation.
Cari: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Gustavo: That's it for this episode at The Times, essential news from the L.A. Times. Ashlea Brown and Kasia Broussalian were the jefas on this episode, and Mario Diaz mixed and mastered it. Our show's produced by Shannon Lin, Denise Guerra, Kasia Broussalian, David Toledo and Ashlea Brown. Our editorial assistant is Madalyn Amato. Our engineers are Mario Diaz, Mark Nieto and Mike Heflin.
Our editor is Kinsee Morlan. Our executive producers are Jazmín Aguilera, Heba Elorbany and Shani Hilton. And our theme music is by Andrew Eapen. Like what you're listening to? Then make sure to follow The Times on whatever platform you use. Don't make us the Poochie of podcasts. I'm Gustavo Arellano. We'll be back next week with all the news and desmadre. Gracias.