Serena Williams was challenged by a male player ranked much lower than her in 2017.
Williams won the Australian Open title in 2017, which turned out to be the final Grand Slam of her decorated career.
Shortly after winning her 23rd Grand Slam singles title, Williams announced that she was pregnant with her first child.
During her time away from the WTA Tour, comments from John McEnroe prompted an ATP player ranked outside the top 700 to say he could beat Williams.
Dmitry Tursunov said he could beat Serena Williams as the world number 701
During an interview with US radio show NPR in 2017, seven-time Grand Slam champion McEnroe, who claimed he could beat Williams in 2002, made more controversial comments about his compatriot.
Despite Williams holding two Grand Slams at the time, McEnroe claimed that she would be ranked around world number 700 in the ATP rankings.
“If she played the men’s circuit she’d be, like, 700 in the world,” said McEnroe. “That doesn’t mean I don’t think Serena is an incredible player, and I suppose anything’s possible; maybe at some point a women’s tennis player can be better than anybody.
“I just haven’t seen that in any other sport, and I haven’t seen it in tennis. If she had to just play the men’s circuit, it would be an entirely different story.”
These comments created a big reaction, with McEnroe’s remarks even being responded to by Williams herself.
She wrote on X (known as Twitter at the time), “Dear John, I adore and respect you but please please keep me out of your statements that are not factually based.”
While many were critical of McEnroe’s comments, world number 701 at the time Dmitry Tursunov backed himself in a match against Williams when speaking to BBC World Service Sport at the time.
Tursunov had a career-high singles ranking of world number 20, but was in the latter stages of his playing career when he made these comments at 34 years old.
“I would hope that I would win against Serena,” Tursunov said. “It would be a similar argument to: who would run faster, the fastest woman or the fastest man? Tennis is becoming more and more a physical sport, so it’s going to be hard for a woman to beat the men.
“It’s not black and white, there are lots of factors to take into account. Physically I might not be in the best shape of my life but as an overall package I’m much better than my ranking would suggest. She is pregnant, and I’m not.
“I’ve never heard John say anything absolutely stupid – he knows his stuff. What he said about her being an incredible player is correct – explosive, powerful and she puts in a lot of work. But I would hope that I would win.”
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Tursunov would play the final match of his playing career at the 2017 US Open, and it would not be long until the Russian became a coach.
Despite his comments about Williams, Tursunov has only worked with WTA players in his coaching career so far.
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This started with Elena Vesnina, before Tursunov joined the team of Aryna Sabalenka, who was a rising young talent at the time.
Tursunov joined Sabalenka’s team in July 2018 when she was on the brink of breaking into the top 30, and helped her achieve some impressive results.
This included winning her first WTA title at the Connecticut Open, which was one of six titles Sabalenka won in her two spells working with Tursunov.
Tursunov also helped Sabalenka make her top 10 debut, but she had still not reached a Grand Slam quarterfinal to this point.
Sabalenka and Tursunov officially parted ways in August 2020, and he has since gone on to coach former world number two Anett Kontaveit, Emma Raducanu, Belinda Bencic and Veronika Kudermetova.
| Aryna Sabalenka when coached by Dmitry Tursunov (July 2018 – December 2019/February August 2020) | |
| Ranking improvement | Career-high before Tursunov – No.32/With Tursunov as coach – No.9 |
| Titles Won | 6 |
| Best Grand Slam Result | Fourth Round (US Open 2018) |
Tursunov’s comments about Williams have now come full circle, as his former player Sabalenka is now set to play Nick Kyrgios in a ‘Battle of the Sexes’ match.
The upcoming match between Sabalenka and Kyrgios has been widely criticised by both tennis fans and former players, but will go ahead in Dubai on December 28.
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