Stop Mentioning Margaret Court - Serena Williams Is the GOAT

The GOAT debate is usually reserved to the men’s Big Three, but when reading discussions surrounding women’s tennis, there is a smaller but vocal portion of Steffi Graf and Margaret Court supporters (as opposed to the generally accepted GOAT, Serena Williams). In this post I will attempt to dismantle any arguments against Serena’s claim to the GOAT status. 

Let’s start with the easy part first – Margaret Court, even if you exclude her off-court actions, is not in contention for the women’s GOAT debate. Not only is Serena a better candidate, but so is Graf, Evert, Navratilova, and arguably Seles and Henin.

“24 > 23!”

This is an easy point to make – Margaret has more major titles than Serena. Case closed, right? No. Wrong. First of all, 11 of Court’s 24 slam titles are from the Australian Open, which consisted of an overwhelming majority of local Australian players in her time – top players did not make the trip to Australia in the 60s and 70s with any regularity. Secondly, the draws in all of Court’s Australian Open titles reach a maximum of 52 players. Every single one of Williams’ Grand Slam titles was a draw of over 100 (128) players. Not comparable. I will re-use the “inequality rhetoric” later in this post in my comparison with Steffi, so keep in mind that the idea of 24 > 23 in reference to Court/Serena does not hold the weight of 23 > 22 in reference to Serena/Graf. 

Margaret Court “has 24 singles majors”

Take a look at this Wikipedia page listing women’s Grand Slam singles champions. Notice anything interesting regarding the phrasing of Court’s caption (compared to Serena, Graf, Moody, Evert, and Navratilova)? The five players in the parentheses are listed as “winners of x amount of Grand Slam titles,” whereas Court “has 24 singles majors.” Why the different verbiage regarding Court? The answer is simple – Court has won tournaments without even playing finals. Take, for example, the 1966 Australian Open – Court “won” the tournament because her opponent in the final, Nancy Smith, withdrew before the match. Big W for Margaret. This isn’t a real tournament win on par with Williams or Graf – Court played four matches to win this tournament and quite literally did not put any effort into the final to win the tournament. Court was a good player for her time. Her achievements are not even close to on par with Williams’.

Steffi Graf

Graf fans make much more compelling arguments than Court supporters to their idol’s claim to the GOAT status, but in this case, 23 > 22. Serena and Graf played Slams with draws of 128 players, which places their individual wins on equal footing – and Serena has more of them. Graf may have had a shorter career and may have won more singles titles overall, but the fact of the matter is that she was unable to stick it out for one more major. 

Steffi’s career was shorter

This is true, but Graf played more tournaments yearly than Serena and could not win more than 22 slams before she decided to retire. Graf is a moot stance in the GOAT debate. 

Serena Williams is the greatest women’s tennis player of all time. Case closed.