Is she now or will she go down as the most dominating athlete of any sport of all-time? Tiger was dominant in the day, but what's Serena has done is more impressive. She's won 21 grand slam tournaments and been runner-up in four. Tiger has 14 major wins.

The only person I can think of that is close to Serena's accomplishment is Bobby Fischer. In 1970 and 1971 he won 20 consecutive games against two of the top Grandmasters in the world at the time. It's completely unthinkable in chess, because as black, you're at a natural disadvantage, being always one move behind. That means Fischer probably won 10 games as black. He went on to win the World Championship in '72 against the Russian, Spassky, whom he had never beaten before.

Chess?

Yes, chess. But the question is about Serena.

Nope, no idea but chess never comes to mind when talking about all time greats or accomplishments. I can try this out at a party.

It's understandable. Chess at the highest level is as competitive or even more so than other sports, in my estimation. A McEnroe versus Borg match is not too different from Korchnoi versus Karpov (they hated each other).

Keeping with the theme of the thread, I met World Champion Karpov about four years ago and got to ask him a question (about Fischer) and shake his hand. The guy is a legend.

Neither does tennis.

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Well, I can't help that you have a narrow sports focus. But then again, horses for courses.

You go ahead and do what you do.

This beats the hell out of talking about Amazon employees for a week on a sports board.

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What I'm saying is that the lady ain't gettin no RESPECT (Sing it Aretha!) for being probably the best athlete in the world today and perhaps ever. M. Jeff with his six championships has nothing on Serena.

I'm no tennis expert...but my sense is that the sport is a little "top heavy", pardon the pun.
Both the mens and womens side seem to have the same 4-6 players in the semis of the big tourneys for years at a time, even though several hundred players are on tour. These great players pound the hell out of no names for the first 3 rounds of every tourney.

Is this pretty accurate?

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I wouldn't mind hearing about chess matches though. I could live without tennis.

NCAA championship.

2 Olympic Gold Medals.

6 NBA Titles.

7 if Scotty knew about aspirin.

Quite naturally, fuck you...to some degree.

Plus you beat the hell out of Dominick's.
There is that

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No way to tell obviously but Im not sure she's better than Martina, Everett, or Graf .

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

The problem for Serena is that the women's tour is absolutely putrid. And yes, the natural response to this is to say that when one athlete is so dominant it makes the rest of the field look weak just on that basis; it's kind of a circular argument. But the thing is I think she's playing fairly worse than she was in the mid-2000s when Henin and Clijsters and peak Sharapova were around to actually push her. I don't think any of the higher rated non-Serena players today would have had much success in that era or any really. To contrast this with the men's tour, there were plenty of times one could envision someone like Murray racking up lots more majors than the era in which he competed; I absolutely don't think the same could be said for any of the top ranked WTA players today.

Fischer's greatness is relative and lasted for about 2 years. He was scared of playing Karpov and was still in his prime. What kind of a champion acts like that? Fischer could play white every match and Carlsen would wipe the floor with him.

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Back off, Warchild. Seriously.

Are these tennis players? Cricket? We need some context, what sport are we talking here?

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She's on Sportscenter now. She beat the living hell of out of something called "Karin Knapp" in the rd of 16.

Nobody knows who Knapp is. Never will. And Serena has probably beaten 3 other Knapp's this week.

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Oh also I sort of agree with this. I think we see this for a variety of reasons, but one of the main ones is that the surfaces largely play the same these days. So the handful of players most adept at playing one particular style across all surfaces are rewarded again and again. This is quite a bit different from the 80s and 90s when you'd have surface specialists to be feared during each particular portion of the season. I think both tours lack depth these days but the women's tour is especially wanting in that department, as I suggested in my prior post.

She's the best, took years off in her prime..was bored with dominating the sport..just like Jordan . Then came back n commenced to kicking everyone's ass

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That's because you're too young. For someone my age, chess was huge. Bobby Fischer was like Tiger Woods and the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team rolled into one. In the 70s it was cool to play chess.

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Don't take it personally.

Did you not understand the point of the section????

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

this is in the "brush with fame" section because...?

margaret court has 24 grand slams. williams can surpass that but she still has to do that.

Maybe Dignified Rube is Brett Ratner.

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Don't take it personally.

she still isnt even the all time leader in her own sport.... so assuming she gets 4 more, she is in the team photo for sure dummyrube

Slow, tiny and white. Or Hardrock, Cocoa, and Joe, whichever you prefer

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

Fischer was ahead of his time in every respect in chess. He knew the openings, particularly, the Najdorf variation of the Sicilian, better than anyone. On the White side, he played e4 primarily, which is considered the best opening. He was just super efficient with his play, and knew the styles of former champions, like Capablanca his favorite, as well as anyone. Fischer was the giant that stood on former giants like Capablaca, Alekhine, Stenitz and Lasker. When the Russians dominated the chess world between '48 and the early to mid 60s, Fischer came along and stomped them all, and helped break the Soviet Union in the process. The guy was unbelievable.

Interestingly, the question I posed Karpov was about the time he met Fischer in Spain, while they were negotiating their World Championship match. I don't have the impression at all that Fischer dodged Karpov, he was agreeable toward him. Fisher was always mentally unstable as certain geniuses are, and chess geniuses are the worst of them all (if you want to read about how to go crazy by playing chess, look at "die Schachnovelle" by Stefan Zweig), and when the world championship organizers and Karpov wouldn't agree to his term about a match-tie keeping him champion, he told them to kiss off and wasn't seen for many years.

It's too soon to make any conclusions about Carlsen. The fact that Kasparov coached him is telling. But there are certain players that have his number, like Vassily Ivanchuk, who's another nut. Would be great to see Nakamura play Carlsen in a world championship match.

Well, who do you think has the most power?

A: Serena

Yes, I mentioned that I met Karpov four years ago. Other than that, no where else to put this thread. Doesn't fit in the general section. That's more political.

Remember I'm still a CSFMB neophyte. Still working toward CSFMB Jedi-ship.