the players to come into the side and play their role

For the first time in more than three-and-a-half years, the top-ranked player in womens tennis is not named Serena Williams. The long-standing No. 1, who held that ranking for 186 weeks, hampered by a knee injury, lost in the US Open semifinals Thursday night to 10th-ranked Karolina Pliskova. And with it, she also lost her shot to break Steffi Grafs record for consecutive weeks atop the rankings.Until we get the opportunity to watch Williams play in another major -- which wont be until the Australian Open in January 2017 -- all conversation around her will invariably involve some sort of assessment of her career and legacy, attempting to put into historical context one of the greatest athletes weve ever seen.The key word there is athlete, not womens tennis player. As Williams herself said after her third-round victory last Saturday, Im a female, and Im an athlete. And Im an athlete first.Too often the coverage of Williams qualifies her as one of, if not the greatest, female athletes of all time -- something were?just as guilty of here at espnW. Its certainly important to acknowledge Williamss womanhood. Her femininity has constantly been denied due to that toxic mix of sexism and racism known as misogynoir -- her hair, her body, her demeanor and even her sartorial choices are endlessly scrutinized, while both her strength and her sexuality have been used against her.But the focus on Williamss gender when evaluating her athletic career usually isnt about humanizing or empowering her. Most likely, its said with a wink and a nod to separate her from the men.The subtext is, Yeah, shes the GOAT, but at a girls game. Framing it in this way does more than merely undermine her success. It spares people from needing to consider her among legendary male athletes without comparing her to them.A common tactic in disparaging womens sports is to argue that female players wouldnt be able to beat men in one-on-one competition. This, of course, entirely misses the point: Williams is in the category of all-time greats who similarly dominated their field. Nobodys going around asking if Mariano Rivera would beat Muhammad Ali in the ring.?The need to uphold male athletes as the standard-bearers is often excused away by some lazy argument about quality of competition, but its really about the inability to see sports as something other than just for men. In a column for VICE, Rick Paulas argues that those looking for a woman to beat a man within the same sports are overlooking the fact that most of the major sports were designed to suit male skill sets:I tend to cringe when ascribing such specific attributes to broad gender groups, and I disagree with the implication that if women cant run or swim or serve as fast (Williams can, by the way), that makes womens sports inherently less worthy. But the idea that sports were designed exclusively with men in mind continues to segregate sports as a space thats not meant for women.And the tactic used to justify that is the straw man of direct comparison. A male athlete is simply an athlete, the natural order of things, while a female athlete is an anomaly -- and a supposedly inferior one, at that. Its this thinking that continues to stand in the way of equal pay for women players while holding back the confidence, support and investment needed to help womens sports continue to grow.It doesnt help that those covering sports, including tennis, continue to be overwhelmingly men. According to FiveThirtyEights Carl Bialik, men comprise 73 percent of journalists covering the US Open this year. Thats how you get a reporter telling Andy Murray hes the first tennis player to win two Olympic gold medals, and Murray having to remind him that Venus and Serena have won four each.While this might be an extreme example, it goes to show how separating men and women athletes in our minds can serve to erase female players entirely from our consciousness.But women athletes arent going away, and its up to those of us in the media to continue to nag people into acknowledging their existence and worth. It might be a blatantly self-serving move, but Nikes new campaign declaring Williams the greatest athlete ever is meaningful for both contextual and material reasons. The hesitance of major companies to see marketing value in female players has been a major barrier to the growth of womens sports, and here you have one of the biggest sponsors in sports declaring the supremacy of an athlete who happens to be a woman.At the end of the day, if youve somehow managed to forget one of the greatest athletic careers weve ever seen, the only person who missed out is you. Rio and Flushing notwithstanding, Serenas numbers speak for themselves, and the utter electricity with which she lights up the court is undeniable. And she hasnt just been an incredible boon to the profile of womens sports; she has managed to keep tennis relevant in the U.S. during years of futility by American men. 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Melbourne Storm wrecking ball Nelson Asofa-Solomona has been ruled out of the NRL finals campaign after dislocating his elbow at training.The giant prop will undergo surgery on Friday after he fell on his elbow during a drill at their Melbourne training ground on Wednesday morning.In obvious pain, he was rushed for scans, which confirmed the worst.The Storm have looked to the 20-year-old - at 200cm and 115kg one of the biggest players in the NRL - to steam-roll the tiring defence when he comes off the bench.Christian Welch looms as the most likely to replace him for Saturday weeks preliminary final at AAMI Park against Penrith or Canberra.Storm football director Frank Ponissi said it was a blow for Asofa-Solomona and the team.He earlier missed five weeks with a knee injury as well as being sidelined this season through two suspensions.The injury could end his hopes of selection for the New Zealand team for the end-of-year Four Nations tournament.Nelsons injury is bitterly disappointing for him and the team, particularly with the impressive form he has shown this season, Ponissi said.While we are disappointed to lose Nelson, a feature of our team this season has been our deppth and the resilience of the players to come into the side and play their role.ddddddddddddWe have no doubt whoever replaces Nelson, will come in and do just that.While Asofa-Solomona is out, the Storm are confident hard-working lock Dale Finucane will overcome an ankle injury to play.Finucane didnt take part in team training on Wednesday in Melbourne but the club believed he would be fit for the grand final qualifier.Coach Craig Bellamy said this week was a balancing act in trying to maintain the teams momentum and giving his players a well-deserved rest.Sometimes you worry about missing that game in that it might dent your momentum a little bit, as weve been pretty good the last couple of games and wed like to keep that going, Bellamy said.While his heart is with his old playing club Canberra, Bellamy says he cant split the Raiders and Panthers.Ive got a bit of a soft spot for Canberra as thats where I played but, having said that, the game could go either way.Theyre two really good teams in really good form and Im sure it will be a good game. 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