The Williams Sisters and the Rise of the Women’s Power Game

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: September 28, 2012

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Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova met 80 times during their long and storied rivalry. The two battled on the tennis court from 1973 to 1988, with Navratilova slightly edging Evert 43-37.

Their riveting rivalry sold women’s tennis to the televised world that was just tuning in to tennis shortly after the Open Era began in 1968.

It was a master stroke in timing, giving the women’s game legitimacy against the backdrop of Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl and other rising stars in the men’s game. Attracted by the exciting play and often intense animosity of the men's contests, television drew new fans in droves to tennis.

Once there, fans remained impressed with the power and drive of the Navratilova serve and volley game, in contrast to the game of the seemingly prim and precise Evert, who dominated from the baseline.

Later, as this rivalry died out, it was replaced by contests between the cool and remote Steffi Graf and the exuberant Monica Seles in the next generation. These two varied their approach to the game as serve and volley began to die out. For their part, Graf and Seles both possessed masterful all-court games.

No one, however, could have anticipated the next huge change in women’s tennis.

When historians of the future look back on the women’s game in tennis, they will most certainly point to one event that changed the course of the game more significantly than any other.

When the Williams sisters emerged on the scene in the late 1990s as teenagers, the women’s game changed forever. The serve became more than getting play underway, it became a weapon—the underpinning of the new power game in women’s tennis.



The Williams sisters were big, powerful, athletic women who grew to dominate women’s tennis and change the game forever.

Their stinging serves alongside potent grou...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Tennis

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