Serena Williams chases tennis history while trailing at the bank

LONDON — Serena Williams is on the cusp of making sports history, yet she’s still not No 1 with marketers.

That could change with a victory at the US Open, which would secure tennis’s first calendar-year sweep of the four majors since Steffi Graf did it in 1988. Williams is the first No 1 player to have twice as many ranking points as the No 2, while her 21 major singles championships equal the rest of the women’s field combined.

Even with her dominance and longevity, the 33-year-old Williams isn’t the highest earner in the women’s game. That title belongs to Maria Sharapova, who made US$23 million (S$32.2 million) in endorsements in the year ended June to Williams’s US$13 million, according to Forbes.

“This Grand Slam year will be a game changer for Serena and I do hope corporate America steps up,” Stacey Allaster, chairman and chief executive officer of the women’s WTA tour, said in an interview this month in Stanford, California. “I think we’re going to see a significant increase.”

A fourth consecutive US Open title would tie Graf’s professional-era record of 22 majors and leave Williams two shy of the overall mark of 24 held by Australian Margaret Court since 1973. No male player has swept all four Grand Slam events in a calendar year since another Australian, Rod Laver, did it for the second time in 1969.

The women’s final, scheduled for Sept 12, sold out before the men’s final — probably for the first time this century, US Open organisers said.

Trying to complete the Grand Slam was “definitely a goal of mine when I was younger”, Williams said in an interview with a small group of reporters a few hours after her Wimbledon victory. “Since then, it’s become more of a distant dream, a fable, because I’ve never been this close.”

WINNING STREAK

“If she brings her A game, she’s going to win this,” four-time US Open winner John McEnroe said on an ESPN conference call this week. “To me, she’s the greatest female player that ever played.”

Williams’s winning streak in the majors the past 12 months has not only impressed former champions, it’s also boosted her appeal among US consumers because she’s become “more of an iconic figure” who transcends the sport, according to Henry Schafer, executive vice president at The Q Scores in Manhasset, New York, which measures consumer appeal.

“If you wanted to appeal not just to sports or tennis fans, but just the population at large, Serena has a stronger profile than Maria,” Schafer said. “She’s much more recognisable.”

A win in New York would put the American “in an extremely elite group”, Schafer said.

RECORD WINNINGS

Although Williams has won a women’s record US$73 million in prize money — twice as much as Sharapova — she’s the second-highest-paid female athlete after the five-time major winner from Russia.

Sharapova, 28, has been ranked as the world’s best-paid female athlete since she stunned Williams in the 2004 Wimbledon final. Williams has beaten her 17 times in a row since that year.

Sharapova has deals with companies including Nike, Samsung Electronics, German carmaker Porsche and her own candy brand, Sugarpova, in the year ended June, Forbes said.

Williams has deals with companies including Nike and Gatorade. In the past year, she’s added JP Morgan Chase and Swiss luxury watchmaker Audemars Piguet, while PepsiCo is using her to help relaunch the Pepsi Challenge.

Both women trail the sport’s biggest earner, 17-time Grand Slam winner Roger Federer, who made US$58 million from endorsements alone.

MORE BRANDS

“We’re seeing interest from a much broader range of brands,” Jill Smoller, a partner at WME and Williams’s long-time agent, said in an interview. “Some are not necessarily tennis focused, and some aren’t even necessarily sports focused. They’ve gotten on the ride of her potential history-making run here.”

Although Williams is known by 67 per cent of the US population compared with 39 per cent for Sharapova, the Russian “appeals much more to male sports fans while Serena has a much stronger appeal to female sports fans”, Schafer said. In addition, the third-ranked Sharapova “has a much stronger appeal to sports fans with a household income over US$100,000”.

‘CORPORATE BIAS’

Forbes attributed the difference between the two biggest stars of the women’s game to “race, corporate bias, likability and beauty”.

“If they want to market someone who is white and blond, that’s their choice,” Williams told the New York Times this week, when asked about the difference. “I can’t sit here and say I should be higher on the list because I have won more.”

Williams added she was “happy” for Sharapova to top the list “because she worked hard, too. There is enough at the table for everyone”.

Serena and her older sister and seven-time Grand Slam singles winner, Venus, were taught the game on public courts in Compton, California, by their father, Richard. Serena won her first major at the US Open in 1999. Last month at Wimbledon, she completed the “Serena Slam” of all four majors in a row for the second time in her career.

‘UNIQUE VOICE’

“The interest is not just from Fortune 500 brands,” Smoller said. “It’s tech, media companies. It’s entities that want to integrate her unique voice and story.”

‘‘We’ve been very selective about who her partnerships have been with, and continue to be,” Smoller said, adding future deals could include “taking equity pieces of businesses and building companies”.

“We’re looking at the whole picture when assessing the next 10 years of her business and her future,” she said. BLOOMBERG