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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Awen23 (talk | contribs) at 02:39, 5 September 2016 (→‎Height: More slightly suspect profiling - I'm only doing it in the name of science, honest). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Template:Vital article

Early life- coaches

I am confused. It says her father was her main coach but that another mentor included "Richard Williams." Is that a different Richard Williams than her dad or are we talking about the same person? -KaJunl (talk) 02:37, 18 June 2016 (UTC) KaJunl (talk) 02:37, 18 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I clarified this. Gap9551 (talk) 19:47, 5 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Billie Jean King quote

Hello. I just want to discuss the information/quote I placed in Serena Williams lead. I feel that the quote is appropriate because other tennis player articles feature similar nods.

"When asked whether she thinks Serena Williams is the best tennis player ever, the 12-time Grand Slam winner and Women’s Tennis Association founder answered unambiguously: “Yes. I think we all do. I think every generation gets better.”" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/billie-jean-king-serena-williams-goat_us_55f08f97e4b093be51bd4e20

My original edit read: Tennis legend and WTA co founder, Billie Jean King, said in 2015 that she believes Serena is the greatest tennis player of all time.

A few examples: Roger Federer: "His accomplishments in professional tennis have led to him being regarded as the greatest tennis player of all time." Martina Navratilova: "In 2005, Tennis magazine selected her as the greatest female tennis player for the years 1965 through 2005." Steffi Graf: "Navratilova included Graf on her list of great players. In 1999 Billie Jean King said "Steffi is definitely the greatest women's tennis player of all time". No one seems to have an issue with these quotes so why on this article? Thoughts?

According to Wiki's Biographies of living persons guideline: Criticism and praise should be included if they can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, so long as the material is presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a disinterested tone. Also: Wikipedia's sourcing policy, Verifiability, says that all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation; material not meeting this standard may be removed.

I feel that the quote meets both of these standards and should be ok to add. A point was made about the length of this article and not wanting to overdo it. I can see that is an issue. Are there any objections to reworking that paragraph in a way that will not lose info and make room for the quote? I can post a draft here before editing.TJC-tennis-geek (talk) 19:56, 5 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

there are a lot of quotes off Serena. i think there should be a separate section for it. Leave the lead as it is and put the (meaningful) quotes in a separate section if the page isn't WP:toobig and allows it. SWF88 (talk) 20:54, 5 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with SWF88. It could be added to the list at the (a) footnote, or perhaps a section of accolades. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:21, 5 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I may be missing something but I don't see any quotes in the lead. I would be happy to write a different section and I will try to keep it to a paragraph or so but please address the above points regarding the other articles. For instance, Graf has a nicely written paragraph of accolades in her lead while the Federer article has a legacy section like what you two are suggesting. Should all three just have a legacy section for accolades leaving the leads for general info and major accomplishments? Any notes would be appreciated. Thanks. TJC-tennis-geek (talk) 00:17, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the lead often doesn't need any sources because it's merely repeating what is already in the body of the article. Serena's lead states that "Williams is regarded by some commentators and sports writers as the greatest female tennis player of all-time.[a]" That (a) contains 11 links to quotes and accolades. You could certainly add one more to that list without messing up anything. There's also the lead sentence, the lead paragraph and lead section with multiple paragraphs. Graf's is five paragraphs long with no mention of greatest in the lead sentence or paragraph. It's in her 4th paragraph. Serena already has a mention of greatest in the lead paragraph. Perhaps it should all be moved to the bottom paragraph of the lead section? Federer's article is pretty much just like Serena's as far as a single mention of greatest in the lead paragraph with an (a) that has many links and quotes. He also has a legacy section but it also has only one greatest sentence with no quotes. It's mostly for awards and records. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:03, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Another thing: King said yes to "best" so we cannot say "greatest". To many people, "greatest" would be most accomplished (mainly victories and ranking for a tennis player) while King's quote is clearly about hypothetical matchups between different generations. Compare to athletics. The current world record holders may be the best ever but if they never won big championships then few people would call them the greatest ever. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:44, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That was a misquote, good catch. I'll make sure to fix that in the Legacy section.TJC-tennis-geek (talk) 13:38, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If it's a quote you would use what she said, best or greatest. But generally they are synonymous. I would not look at greatest by a total of victories. If someone wins 10 majors in 4 years and another wins 12 majors in 12 years, I would tend to regard the 10 major player as greater without any other details. Some players have the gift of longevity to add to their totals, and in some, because they played so long, their win percentage drops dramatically from their peak, making them look historically worse. Like Bill Tilden with all his late career losses. I guess greatest is something that can only be judged against ones peers. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:01, 6 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, the question was if she was the "best" to which BJK answered in the affirmative. I messed up and typed "greatest" and instead I'll use "best" for this particular quote.TJC-tennis-geek (talk) 00:17, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Jehova's Witness

Her religion seems to be a big part of her life and focus in sport, but is not currently mentioned. 86.178.89.209 (talk) 18:18, 9 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Different eras

Can we talk about why in the records section Serena is being compared to people who played back in the early 1900's? It's hardly comparable to have ladies from the pre-open era in there when hardly anyone came to those majors at the time and were lucky to have 32 women in a draw with maybe 3 countries represented. How is that at all comparable to Serena who has a 128 draw with players from all over the world? Seems illogical to be compared to these women, when their ways of attaining these achievements are polar opposite. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Svrodgers (talk • contribs) 03:04, 10 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

One can only be judged against ones peers. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:32, 10 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If someone's the best in the world, it makes no difference how many wannabes have to be defeated along the way. These women are champions, end of story. (203.132.77.45 (talk) 10:50, 10 July 2016 (UTC))[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 19 July 2016

In the introduction's first paragraph the weeks at number 1 needs to be updated.


TheGOATeditor (talk) 13:23, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. nyuszika7h (talk) 13:29, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
 Done Gap9551 (talk) 18:00, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Battle of the Sexes

I'm confused as to why Serena's (and Venus) bio needs to go into such details for an informal match against a random man? There is far less information in Navratilova, King and Court's bios when they were the ones who actually competed in the battle of the sexes. Navratilova gets a 2 sentences, and Court 1 while Serena gets an entire paragraph with its own subsection for an informal match just for fun? To me, it seems as the inclusion of this paragraph in such detail is to paint the Williams Sisters as arrogant, and the wording certainly makes it seem so. There is no mention of any type of match for Justine Henin or Li Na who competed in similar "battles" so the reasoning for including it so thoroughly in Serena and Venus's is strange at best. Svrodgers (talk) 02:35, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There can be many reasons. Serena and Venus were certainly boasting more about it back then... sort of the opposite of Riggs-King. There is also much more info available about modern matches than matches in the 70s. Then we have a big one... article weight. None of those other ladies has the detail of anything as much as Serena does. Every Serena match is looked at. Serena has a 200,000k article, and many many yearly articles, plus Williams Sisters and William Sisters Rivalry articles. It's endless. King has a 115,000k article and no season articles, Court has a 45,000k article and no season articles, Navratilova has a 75,000k article and no season articles. They are all dwarfed by Serena's article when they should be the same. Graf has 80,000k, Evert 45,000k, Henin 75,000k. Oh and Venus, who isn't in the same league as those players has 136,000k. That is strange at best. I look at perhaps the best female players ever, Wills, Lenglen, Connolly, and see 48,000k, 31,000k, 25,000k respectively. All the sexes-matches were played for fun from what I could see. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:50, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Height

Presently quoted as 5 feet 9 inches on what looks quite an ancient source. But Google gives 5 feet 10 inches and as I write while watching Kitova vs Kerber at US Open, a women commentator corrected a male commentator's (unfortunately I tuned in too late to get Eurosport's commentators' names) "only 5 feet 9 inches" to say she herself was 5 feet 10 inches tall and Serena was taller. She said she didn't know why it was quoted as 5 feet 9 inches - perhaps that was what she was as a teenager.

But I can't find Google's source.

This should be a challenge: Google v Wikipedia on Serena's height - really it ought to go to executive level given its obvious importance . Awen23 (talk) 01:33, 5 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Commentator was Mary Pierce whose article indeed gives her (i.e. Mary's) height as 5 feet 10 inches. Awen23 (talk) 02:02, 5 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hmhh ... not persuaded by this image of Mary and Serena together, but Mary might have been wearing heels. I found a 2002 source where Serena says she was now more like 5 feet 10 inches. It's tolerably interesting Google gives Serena's height as 5 feet 1o inches - I mean in terms of their so-called knowledge database. What do they know we don't know (quite a lot I suspect). Awen23 (talk) 02:38, 5 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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