(Sports Illustrated)
Serena Williams is the 2015 Sports Illustrated “Sportsperson of the Year,” it was announced on Monday. Check out the magazine cover photo at right!
The world’s No. 1-ranked female tennis player won three Grand Slams in 2015 and came tantalizingly close to capturing the calendar Grand Slam by winning all four majors in the same year, before losing in the semifinals of the U.S. Open. She took the rest of the season off, but admits to Sports Illustrated that the loss took a toll on her. “I didn’t want to necessarily put a fist through a wall — I felt more like, Ah, man, I was so close,” she says. “I’ll always think about what I could have done better… it’s not anger. It’s analyzing: What can I do next time?”
Williams also talks about her role as an activist both on and off the court. She made headlines this year by competing at the tournament in Indian Wells for the first time in 14 years, even though she previously vowed to never return after being mercilessly booed by the crowd in the 2001 finals and her father alleging that fans yelled racial slurs at him. “That was hard for me to go through — especially when I was thinking, ‘It’s 2001… Now fast-forward to 2015, and we still have young black men being killed,’” she reflects. “Someone needed to do something. And I thought then that there was something greater than me and tennis. I needed to go back there and speak out against racism.”
The tennis star’s full cover story is set appear in the Sports Illustrated December 21 issue. Tell Gossip Cop what you think of Williams being selected as the 2015 “Sportsperson of the Year.”
