Serena Williams won the ladies’ singles for the sixth time at Wimbledon this weekend. The 33-year-old, who is part of the best sisterhood of tennis players the world has ever seen, beat relative newcomer, Spain’s Garbine Muguruza 6-4, 6-4.
It wasn’t an easy match, with a lot of double faults pushing Serena down 4-0 in the first set before she brought it back, plus a couple of lost match points. But Serena pulled it back to win her 21st Grand Slam and her fourth in a row.
But some people aren’t happy about her success. One being the douche who tweeted JK Rowling to have a go at Serena’s build:
JK had been supportive of Serena, saying:
The person replied, ‘Ironic then that the main reason for her success is that she is built like a man.’
JK’s reply…
As of Monday morning, the man’s still batting his corner, getting into rage after rage about anyone suggesting his comments are nonsense, body-shaming or racist, while finding photos of Serena at her most muscle-bulging as some sort of ‘evidence’ (clue: she’s also at her most tennis-game winning at these points) and retweeting comments that are simply so mean we can’t be bothered to give them publicity.
Meanwhile, it’s not just anonymous internet commenters being foul about Serena, but an entire feature in The New York Times titled ‘Tennis’s Top Women Balance Body Image With Ambition’, where the writer explains that Serena’s ‘rivals could try to emulate her physique, but most of them choose not to’, as if they’d rather be pretty than win.
The writer then interviewed some othere female tennis players and their managers, with one saying they’ll keep their player at 123lb because ‘first of all, she’s a woman and she wants to be a woman’, as if you can’t be physically powerful and a woman?
This sort of disparagement of Serena’s body isn’t just held by knuckle-dragging idiots spending their days picking fights on Twitter, but is backed up by actual important agenda-setting publications. Which then goes full circle to makes those other knuckle-draggers think it’s alright.
But do you know how much Serena Williams cares? This much…
Oh, and do you remember when Vogue, who really do love Serena (Anna Wintour’s a big tennis fan, and was there at the final to watch Serena win), got her to do a re-shoot of Beyoncé’s 7/11 video? We’ve been reminded of it this weekend. One, because it’s fantastic, two, because of the ‘I know you care’ refrain.
Because while Serena’s body is part of her being the best female tennis player in the world, everyone griping about it just sounds bloody jealous:
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.