Comedian Michelle Wolf thinks the standards for male and female athletes are a little out of sync — and that Serena Williams deserves a lot more credit for her turn at Wimbledon this month.
On Sunday’s episode of Netflix’s “The Break With Michelle Wolf,” the host joked that Williams’ Wimbledon performance was incredible… because she gave gave birth via cesarean section only 10 months earlier, suffered a pulmonary embolism and had to undergo multiple surgeries because of complications from the procedure.
“First up, I want to talk about last week’s Wimbledon final, where Serena Williams lost to Angelique Kerber — and Serena losing to Angelique Kerber is the most impressive thing an athlete has ever done,” Wolf said. “Serena had a baby 10 months ago — that’s just one more month than it took to grow the baby!”
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Wolf jokingly compared Williams to three-time NBA champion LeBron James, saying Williams was the LeBron James of tennis — if James had gone through everything Williams had, then “clawed his way to the NBA finals all by himself and showed up with a flawless white manicure.”
“So yeah, I think we can say congrats to Serena on losing Wimbledon,” Wolf said. “Well done!”
Wolf pointed out the difficulties women athletes have to deal with.
“The expectation for male and female athletes are so different,” she said. “In 2013, [NBA point guard] Derrick Rose tore his meniscus and to this day, people have sympathy for the injury. In 2017 Serena Williams tore open the lower half of her body, and people are like, ‘she’s really lost a step.’ Yeah, maybe because she was busy growing two new feet!”
For everything Williams has gone through this past year, coming in second place in the most elite tournament in her sport is nothing to sneeze at.
“She should get one of those ‘Wimbledon Winner’ plates just for not peeing every time she serves,” Wolf said.