Venus, Serena, and the Women’s Tennis Association: When and Where “Race” Enters

Abstract

By 2002 Venus and Serena Williams were the top two women players on the women’s professional tennis tour. Nevertheless, despite their spectacular success, there has been a decidedly ambivalent tenor toward their accomplishments. Applying Raymond Williams’ concept of “structures of feeling,” this essay considers how dominant cultural meanings and values are taken up and expressed through the atmosphere produced at a sport event. Drawing on the insights offered by critical race scholarship and critical whiteness studies, the following discussion examines the character and significance of the atmosphere produced at two tournaments (Indian Wells, CA, in 2001 and the French Open in 2003) in order to understand how white racial subjectivities are conceived and communicated in daily life.

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