We’ve conditioned ourselves to ignore every signal from the body saying This is too much, and we call that conditioning “grit” or “hustle. - Anne Helen Petersen

Serena’s body isn’t built to emulate the look of the model in an Ann Taylor shift dress. It’s built – through an exacting and grueling regimen – to decimate her opponents. And his suggestion that the body, too, is beautiful and sexy – in spite of, or even because of, its threat to the norms of white femininity – will continue to be threatening until the standards of beauty are decentered from those of the white upper class.

Unlike other players – who arrived at the sport because their class and place in society afforded them the possibility – the Williamses fought their way in. Any victory from that point forward would not be out of luck, or proximity to privilege, or pedigree. It would be through sheer strength, work, and will.

The fixers would erase all traces of the incident: the police would be paid off; the report would disappear. To the public at large, he’d continue to be a gallant husband, doting father, and responsible citizen — the very paragon of contemporary masculinity. Any whispers of chronic drunkenness would be silenced by well-placed mentions in the gossip columns concerning his commitment to his adoring children and devoted wife.