Published10 August 2022, 11:46
TennisIn women’s sport, Serena Williams has no successor
Serena Williams is retiring. She leaves behind a big void, and not just in the world of tennis.
Women’s sport is losing its greatest representative.
AFP
Serena Williams announced Tuesday afternoon that she will be retiring soon. In a handful of weeks, the world of women’s tennis will be orphaned by its greatest ambassador. And besides, what goes for tennis also goes for sport in general.
It’s been a long time since the aura of the American has earned its place in the pantheon of sports personalities whose name is enough in itself. The youngest of the Williams sisters is the most prominent representative of women’s sport, its most imposing star. When it comes to notoriety, the holder of 23 Grand Slam titles has no equal. Nor does it have a successor…
Who are the most popular athletes?
Serena Williams aside, who are the most popular athletes today? On this point, going to take a look at social networks is a help of the most zero. The top 10 of the most followed sportswomen are populated by six wrestlers, a tennis player who has never exceeded the 8th place in a Grand Slam in singles (Sania Mirza), a footballer for whom people are hardly passionate outside US Borders (Alex Morgan), Serena Williams, and Simone Biles.
Simone Biles, precisely. Could the gymnast not become the new figurehead of women’s sport? Not really. Despite her immense notoriety, her legendary status and the respect she commands, especially since the last Olympics, Biles is at the twilight of her career. Even if the door remains open, the gymnast has not yet decided if she will line up in 2024 in Paris. And then his case raises another problem: that of the popularity of a whole series of sports whose window of exposure only opens once every four years. The swimmer Katie Ledecky, terror of the pools for a decade, is also seen, preteritized by the very relative interest enjoyed by her discipline outside of the periods when the flame burns.
Notoriety deficit
This further complicates this quest for the new female sports superstar. Because ultimately, the pool of disciplines in which to seek out this new icon is reduced. Among women, motorsports are very little televised. Despite the enthusiasm generated by the recent Euro, club football remains away from cathode ray tubes for most of the season, due to lack of interest. On the parquet side, we go even further.
Finally, what sports are followed year-round for women? Skiing, athletics and tennis. It is in these disciplines that the new high priestess of women’s sport is most likely to be consecrated. And again… The sprinter Allyson Felix may have spent her career amassing all the gold in the world while acting as a spokesperson in recent years in the face of the injustices suffered by his fellow tartansthe Californian has not yet become a sportswoman for the general public.
At the same time, no player in this volatile WTA rankings seems ready to take up the autocratic torch left by Serena Williams, while on the slopes of the white circus, Mikaela Shiffrin’s routine dominance in the overall World Cup standings was not enough to make her an emblem à la Lindsey Vonn.
But after all, maybe this referent, women’s sport can do without it. In his fight for light, he surely needs less a personality that bursts the screen than to continue to be put forward, to grow and to arouse passions. If this is the case, the rantings about the identity of Serena Williams’ successor at the top of world sport will remain all secondary concerns.