Can Serena Get the GOAT?

Numbers don’t mean as much as they used to in sports.  In baseball, 714 once was a hallowed number every fan could recite; ask most fans now what the all-time home run record is and many would still say 714.  Either 500 home runs or 3,000 hits used to be a ticket to Cooperstown; Rafael Palmiero had both and he was just eliminated from the Hall of Fame ballot because he got less than 5% of the possible votes.  The debate over who is the greatest quarterback in NFL history comes down not to numbers, but on how much post-season success should count.

But numbers still mean something, and we could be watching an historic trek over the next few years.  Serena Williams has, as I write this, 17 Grand Slam championships.  By the time you read this she may have tied Chris Evert and Martina Natratilova, who have 18.  Once she catches them, her sights will be set on Helen Wills Moody (19), Steffi Graf (22) and Margaret Court (24).  The question is, can Serena catch Margaret Court and become the Greatest Of All Time?

Let’s concede one thing right away: if Margaret Court in her prime were transported to 2014 to play a match with Serena, Serena would win 6-0, 6-0 in 30 minutes and all Margaret Court would have to show for it would be a lot of wooden tennis rackets broken by Serena’s 120 MPH serves (Helen Wills Moody would probably see one serve and run back to her time machine).  Serena does not need to win 24 Grand Slams to be considered the Greatest of All Time.

The argument against Serena getting to 24 championships would be that unbeaten adversary, Father Time.  Serena is at an age when most women’s tennis players are retired, not winning championships.  Roger Federer is about the same age and he is tinkering with his racket to try and gain an edge in a probably futile attempt to add to his title record.  Winning seven more championships would probably take too long, given the time she has left.

The problem with the above analysis is that it is completely wrong.  Federer is fading, but Serena is more dominant now than she was a decade ago.  How long it will take her to win seven more slams depends on how many she can win per year, and right now it’s hard to see who can stop her.  Serena is probably more dominant in her sport than any individual athlete ever, except possibly for Tiger Woods at his peak.

Serena’s record against her four closest rivals (Azarenka, Sharapova, Li and Radwanska) is 47-6, or Serena wins 88.7% of the time.  The only woman in the top ten who has beaten Serena four times is Jelena Jankovic, against whom Serena’s record is 8-4.  Serena’s worst record against a currently active player is her 14-10 record against her sister Venus, but given Venus’ health problems it doesn’t look like the two of them will be meeting in any more Slam finals.

Will surfaces factor in to how many Slams she can win per year?  It appears not.  Serena has a career Grand Slam, and the only thing stopping Serena from holding all four major titles at one time in 2013 was her loss to Sloane Stevens in the 2013 Aussie Open; before that she had won the 2012 Wimbledon and US Opens, and then won the 2013 French Open.  She is capable of winning all four majors in a year, which would get her to 24 wins by 2015.  She should be the favorite on the grass at Wimbledon for several more years.  So all four surfaces are in play, although the red clay of Roland Garros is the hardest surface for her to win on (only two of her 17 titles).

Of course the big wild card is health.  Serena has played in all four majors only six times since 1999.  But two of those years were 2012 and 2013, and she won two slams in both of those years.  At that pace (two per year) she could win six more majors in three years and be only one shy of Court’s record of 24, and she could easily pick up that additional title at some point.  Given her head-to-head record against her closest rivals, I’d take that action.

I think that even with minor health issues Serena could continue to win at least two major titles per year for another three years, and can easily pick up an additional slam to reach Margaret Court’s total of 24.  I can’t see her playing much longer than that before the inevitable decline kicks in, but if I were Serena Williams I’d start building some more shelves for my trophy case.