Reuters
New York, Dec 16: Serena Williams added to one of the longest resumes in sports by collecting the ‘Sportsperson of the Year’ award from ‘Sports Illustrated’, becoming only the third individual woman to claim the honour since its 1956 inception.
Serena, 34, won the first three Grand Slam singles titles of 2015 after taking last year’s US Open to hold all four crowns at once for her second career ‘Serena Slam’. She logged a 53-3 record, reigned as World No. 1 every week for the second successive year and took her total of Grand Slams to 21, one less than Steffi Graf for most in the Open Era, at an age when most players have been long retired.
“I’ve been doing what I do for over 20 years professionally and that’s a long time to be playing,” Serena stated before Tuesday’s awards dinner. “And this is the first time I have been ever recognised as ‘Sportsperson of the Year’. So it really, really means a lot to me. And being a woman and being only the third to be recognised is pretty awesome.”
Serena said that joining gymnast Mary Lou Retton and speed skater Bonnie Blair on the list of women to claim the award will act as a great motivation for her to succeed on court next year and target even more milestones.
“There’s numbers,” she said, referencing Graf’s 22 and the 24 singles titles won by all-time leader Margaret Court of Australia. “I never looked at numbers until recently. I want to at least try to reach a couple of numbers that I won’t mention. Just go one at a time and hopefully will be there one day.”
Serena won out over such strong contenders as NBA star Stephen Curry, golfer Jordan Spieth and racehorse American Pharoah, the first to win the US Triple Crown in 37 years, who won the magazine’s readers poll for the award.
