Name: Katie Nolan hopes Serena Williams realizes the impact she’s had on tennis | Highly Questionable
Uploaded: 2021-02-19T22:51:15.000Z
Duration: 6 min 44 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

What's your reaction to Naomi Osaka beating Serena and Serena's press conference after?

Past simple

Yeah, these questions were very long today.

They're like, eight part questions either way.

It was obviously the match that everybody was watching.

Serena had said before that she's actually really enjoyed there, not being a crowd.

So there were questions about how that was gonna work.

I've always found this matchup interesting.

Obviously, there was 2018 at the US Open when Osaka beat Serena before and the last time Serena one was here in Australia.

That was when she was pregnant, just a reminder that she is our greatest athlete.

But after the match, she was asked a question, and her answer was very interesting.

Terrible t up and play the clip Really poignant moment when you walked off the court to a standing ovation and you put your hand over your heart what was going through your head in that moment.

So it was nice to see people wondered if you were almost saying farewell.

Yes, Um, I don't know if I If I ever say farewell, wouldn't tell anyone.

So So the last couple questions in the room, please, Craig.

Then you're saying about the unforced errors through the match?

Considering how well you've played to get to this stage, what do you feel cause that it was just one of those bad days at the office?

She got emotional when being asked those questions.

And look, it's an emotional situation, if not for every reason, that you can think of this added reason of like the the people that are coming behind Serena.

The thing that I think makes this so beautiful are the people who would not be in this sport hypothetically, if it weren't for Serena and her sister and they say as much.

And Naomi Osaka has been so high she praises Serena so much, and she's been so grateful and so gracious.

Uh, in every time that there has to be impossible in an individual sport on such a big stage, to have the mental clarity to face off against the person you spend your life looking up to must be incredible, incredibly difficult.

But I also think the other side of that is how heavy that must weigh emotionally on Serena.

But hopefully she can see through the parts of that that hurt and take away from that.

The parts of that that air rewarding that she did this.

She has affected change in this sport and brought us this now generation of athletes who are incredible not just to beat her but because of her.

I hate this clip, but I think you're right, Katie.

But I don't think that that makes her feel any better in the moment when we look at the roller Dex of Winds and her trophy room that she suddenly flexes on social media like we know that she was there.

But she's still a competitive and I think the Australian Open represents so much to her.

Not only was she pregnant, but it was also her last wind, so it's extremely emotional.

I had a modicum of success in basketball, right, like the 1st 21 years of my life, 15 went to playing ball and I was a wreck as a senior down the stretch like don't talk to me about this thing ending like I would burst out into tears.

My coaches from this day, we still laugh about it.

You're insane because you pour your heart and soul into something.

And as you watched yesterday, sure, we're all excited about Naomi.

But it felt literally as you're watching that second set, Number 24 is getting farther and farther away.

Yeah, I think Serena beyond being sincerely hyper competitive, as Monica mentioned, she also kind of knows where the conversation has been recently and where it's going and the fact that she will have to be subject to the same conversation that she very conspicuously opted out of at that podium.

Which is Is this the end for someone who has not won since she was pregnant in 2017 at that same Grand Slam tournament and the Naomi Osaka angle here?

Katie, to just build on what you had said before.

It's more than just someone who was inspired.

Naomi Osaka's dad and her mom, like her dad, an immigrant from Haiti, modeled himself after Richard Williams because he was watching Venus and Serena play at the French Open in 1999 on television.

And so then this guy without much expertise in tennis says, I'm going to raise my daughter to be like them, and he does it.

And Naomi Osaka is doing all of these things that you referenced in terms of now being four no in Grand Slam semi finals, having having won her last three finals now being too and oh, against Serena in these last two major tournaments.

So for me, it is so much existentialism to put upon the shoulders off the greatest athlete ever, and it's really hard to carry.

You want to root for Naomi, but you feel like the window for Serena is closing.

So every time she gets this close, you just want her to get there to speak to the clip.

It is fascinating and intriguing If she said, when I do say farewell, I'm not going to tell anyone, that means we're not getting the victory lap.

We're not going to know when it's coming unless she changes her mind.

We're not gonna get her telling us this is my last Australian Open.

This is my last friend show, but this is my last Wimbledon.

We might start to think so, but a lot of people want to send her out to pasture.

She's doing better than most tennis players will ever do at their peak.

So the idea that she would pull out when she keeps getting this close is kind of absurd to me.

She's going to keep at it while she's still got a shot.

And I think Katie and Pablo, your point is that it's kind of like the Tiger Woods thing, right?

You see the image of your own success and the people coming up after you.

Which means that not only is she doing the thing we've all very much recognized, which is chasing after Margaret Court, the one who came before her, but she's also potentially trying to put some distance between herself and the ones coming after because they're not gonna have to break down those doors.

They're not gonna have to be going through Indian Wells.

We hope so, because she did all that for them and carried that out on her shoulders while winning.

She makes it easier for them to pass her by if they can.

But I could imagine the pressure of it now being on both sides.

And I appreciate you making it without saying something like existentialism, because Pablo just needs to sneak words like that in just so he can flex on us.

Thanks for watching ESPN on YouTube for live streaming sports and premium content.