Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Mia-esque

In just two days, the sports world has suffered two dramatic punches to the gut as Annika Sorenstam announced her retirement from golf yesterday, effective at the end of the year, and then today, Justine Henin announced her retirement from Tennis, effective immediately.

Sorenstam is arguably the greatest female golfer of all time. While there is Natalie Gulbis and Paula Creamer who are really nice to look at, Sorenstam hits the course and does one thing: Win.

She is third all time in career wins with 72 (three this year), by far the active leader. She is also tied for fourth in career wins in Majors with 10. She was the first woman to play with the men in a PGA Tour event in over half a century when she teed it up in 2003 at the Colonial and also holds the record for lowest round in an LPGA event when she carded a 59 in 2001.

Henin was the top-ranked player in women's tennis. Only 25, she ranked 11th all-time with 41 wins in singles action and 7 grand slams. With such a competitive field in women's tennis, this is quite a feat. She has outlasted Serena, Venus, Hingis, and Maria Sharapova at one point or another. Not many can brag about that.

Simply put, they have both quietly made themselves the top female athletes in the world. It's a shame that they had to go through their careers without receving the attention that Roger Federer, Tiger Woods, and other top male athletes get. Hopefully upon announcing their retirements, they finally get some recognition for outstanding careers.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Won't happen... I'd fuck Henin though. Which, I suppose, won't happen either.

Travis Miller said...

hahahaha this might be the attitude that causes the disrespect for women's sports!

though that natalie gulbis is BANGIN

Anonymous said...

It very well could be, but thats a two way street. There are some men who do follow women's sports for the passion, as there are some women for men's sports. However, most of the women who "follow" male sports only do it for, for the lack of a better term, the sex appeal. The best example is right here in NY, Jeter wouldn't be as popular as he is if he wasn't so dreamy. Obviously, the same could be said with men 'following' female sports. Kournikova isn't nearly as good as someone who has all sorts of endorsements should be, but she's sexy.

You can also use this 'logic' with music. Remember the whole boy band hysteria while in school?

By the way, Jones hit a homer. Seems like he's finally starting to come around.