Serena Williams: The Gold Standard of Women’s Tennis

Women’s tennis is not the most watched televised sport event there is. As a matter of fact women’s tennis has one of the lowest viewership anywhere in sports television. Viewership translates into market share, and market share into money. The lower the viewership the smaller the market share the lower the revenue to the network. Thus television networks are not overly fund of small market share. Serena Williams is the answer to this particular problem. When Serena plays tennis on television, people watch. People watch for many different reasons but they watch. Men have their own particular reasons and they may not have much to do with tennis. The increase viewership makes the network very happy and increases their revenue. Then there is the giant purses – prize money – now available to women playing professional tennis, because Serena and her awesome sister Venus Williams brought such a large fan base to the sport and are still attracting more.

Serena’s game is so strong; it makes the other women who have to face her in a match quake in their shoes. Her opponents always pretend that they are there to try to win the match, but truth be told; they don’t stand a prayer. You may ask how come she loses from time to time. If you ever watch her play you would see she beats herself for her own reasons. Mostly she fails to focus and makes what is known as ‘unforced errors’ causing her to lose those rare matches.

At this year’s US open tournament Serena has been laying waste the field of opponents. Remember now, she has been away from the game for more than a year with an injury and then a life threatening illness. Yet she has stormed back and seems to be better than ever, which is not good news for the rest of the field. Before her matches starts the announcers dutifully tell of the prowess of her opponent. They build up the other player so much that as a fan of Serena, I get a little queasy thinking the girl may actually beat her. I get butterflies and watch anxiously until the first ball is struck, and then I know it’s all over and the fat lady has sung.

Welcome back Serena, I am one happy tennis fan. After all you are the reason I started watching women’s tennis in the first place.


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