3 Stories: Serena Williams Edition

Naomi Osaka defeated Serena Williams in straight sets at the US Open Final last weekend. But the conversation since then has been about the point penalties, the behavior of Williams and chair umpire Carlos Ramos, and questions of race, gender and equal treatment.

Howard Bryant has been thinking about history. "I can't remember a great player that gets less dispensation than Serena," he says. "This woman and her family have been under constant assault since they came into the sport 25 years ago."

Julie DiCaro of 670 The Score in Chicago has written about the double standard between the treatment of male and female players.

"Jimmy Connors called a referee an 'abortion.' We all know what John McEnroe did on the sidelines. And it never led to this kind of conversation and this kind of international debate," she says. "So how do you take it as anything other than it being because she's a woman?"

And Penn State University assistant professor of Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies Amira Rose Davis says that Serena stands for much more than tennis.

"Serena reminds me very much of this century's Jack Johnson," Rose Davis says. "Her swagger, her unforgivable blackness and her sheer dominance in the face of all of these kind of other barriers."

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