Tennis Arms Race: Roger v. Serena

08/27/2012

Here are the first and last pictures (plus captions) in a photo gallery entitled Wimbledon Arms Race in the Toronto Star in 2011:

Sure he may be the greatest player of all time. But Roger Federer is nowhere near the tops when it comes to arm muscles at Wimbledon this year. There are more impressive specimens to come … .

But really, Serena Williams takes the cake. Her arms look more muscled than Roger Federer’s thighs. No wonder she has such a powerful serve.

And, again, here’s that article in the New York Times Magazine trying to figure out why tennis fans have never really taken to the Williams Sisters. Is it their race?

Let me ramble a moment about Access Journalism. Anybody can put together snarky photo galleries like The Star did. But, there’s no prestige in that. The high end of journalism is doing interviews for profiles, especially with posed photos. People apparently like these beefcake glamour photos of celebrities that magazines put on their covers. But if the interviewer asks unwelcome questions, like, "Serena, why are your arms more muscular than the world’s greatest tennis player’s thighs?" not only will the interview be over, but, worse, the photo shoot will be off.

Moreover, it often turns out that your access is terminated not only to Serena Williams, but to the 17 other clients of her offended PR manager. Your career could be over. So, don’t ask unwelcome questions. Instead, just go with the conventional wisdom about "Aren’t these strong women wonderful role models?"

You can tell that the guy writing the NYT Mag article about Serena thinks his assignment is kind of screwy, but he can’t come out and say that.

The other thing that I wanted to mention is the weird climate we are in where you aren’t really supposed to mention that it’s nice to see a champion athlete who looks like Federer — a grown man who, for once, doesn’t look like a cartoon character or a mutant. I guess that would be too offensive to all the science project athletes and their fans.

So, what other top athletes out there besides Federer are still built more like, say, Joe DiMaggio in 1941 than like Predator or Alien?

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