I cringe every time it comes up. Why, just last night ...............
Yeah, I know. I was sitting at the lodge with some friends, and it wasn't too long before one of the guys brought it up. I just cringed. This guy is a big Margaret Court man. And sure, she isn't without her qualifications, but the game fundamentally changed. So we kicked it back and forth over a good half bottle of Basil Hayden's. You know, Court, King, and how sport benefited from Chris Evert's emergence. That was comfortable for a while, but we sort of fell silent after a while. I started to say, "You know, fellas, no one really knows how good Evonne Goolag-" and then my buddy stopped me with a little tap on my forearm.
"Forget it, he said,"there's no use. We come here every week and we talk about women's tennis, and we're just kidding ourselves. Come on, boys. Come clean: Serena Williams is the greatest female tennis player of all time." He slugged back his whiskey and put his glass down silently, then stared out the window.
We were silent for a little while, each lost in his own reconciliation. Then Fred took my left hand, and Joe took my right, and Bill took Fred's, and Ken joined hands with the others, and there we were, the five of us, joined in a prayerful sort of moment of acceptance. We had to let them go: Tracy Austin. Martina Navratilova. Bettina Bunge. Pam Shriver. Hana Mandlikova.
We had to let them go. "Serena Williams," Joe said.
"Serena Williams, we all repeated, softly, Fred's baritone adding lustre coming in slightly behind, "greatest female tennis player of all time."
We wept quietly for a while, then we dragged a Mexican kid behind one of our trucks on the way home.
