For over a decade, men’s tennis has been defined by one of the greatest rivalries of all time. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal ushered in a gold-en age for the ATP; entire books have been devoted to individual matches in the 36-strong “Fedal” series, which wrote a late and unexpected chapter in this year’s Australian Open final. But in the same time period, tennis fans were robbed of a rivalry that had the potential to define the WTA in similar ways. Serena Williams and Justine Henin were polar opposites in temperament, in style, and in their very approach to tennis both as a sport and as entertainment; their battles captured the imagination like few other matchups this century. But while Federer vs. Nadal was a fire that reignited men’s tennis, Serena vs. Justine burned brightly but flickered out too soon.
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Since Henin’s first retirement in 2008, Serena has underlined her status as the Greatest of All Time in women’s tennis— putting the accolade beyond all doubt with her 23rd Slam title in Australia, an Open Era record. In that time, she has seemed to exist separately from the rest of the sport. Her dominance over the field—sometimes exerted with an iron fst, sometimes casually toyed with as her interest has waxed and waned—has been such that it’s strange to even consider Serena having rivals in any meaningful sense of the word. The best the field have salvaged are crumbs from a monarch’s table: a couple of hard-fought wins over her to mitigate double-digit losses; a Slam title here and there. As Serena has approached, struggled with, and overcome milestones in her tally of titles—first the target of 18 to bring her level with Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, then Steffi Graf’s former Open Era record of 22—it’s been evident that Serena’s greatest rivalry this decade has been with history.