Serena Williams Shuts Down John McEnroe for Comparing Her to Male Players

Sports

McEnroe declines to apologize after saying Williams would “rank like 700 in the world” if she competed against men

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Serena Williams delivered an overhead smash after retired tennis great John McEnroe’s weekend interview claiming that she’d only “rank like 700 in the world” if she competed against men.

In a series of tweets on Tuesday, Williams responded to McEnroe’s weekend interview with NPR in which he praised her as the “best female player ever — no question,” but added that “if she played the men’s circuit she’d be like 700 in the world.”

“Dear John, I adore and respect you but please please keep me out of your statements that are not factually based,” tweeted Williams, who is pregnant with her first child with fiancé and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.

“I’ve never played anyone ranked ‘there’ nor do I have time,” she added. “Respect me and my privacy as I’m trying to have a baby. Good day sir.”

On Tuesday, McEnroe refused to apologize in a new interview with “CBS This Morning” anchor Norah O’Donnell. “I don’t want anything to go wrong with Serena because she’s pregnant. I don’t want to upset her or whatever it was,” he said.

“I think that deep down we’re talking about something — I can’t even believe we’re talking about it,” he said, adding that he believed he would rank “about 1,200 in the world” if he tried to compete on the current men’s circuit.

Thom Geier

Thom is an award-winning editor and writer with a keen knowledge of American pop culture and a knack for finding original approaches that inform and delight readers. He’s handled breaking news as well as long-term feature packages, mentored young writers who have become industry leaders, and developed fresh, shareable content across both print and digital…

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