Let’s fashion a halo of laurel-leaves for Serena Williams

We're not here to argue about whether women should play five sets of tennis like the men. (You makes the rules, you takes the breaks, boys.) We are here to fashion a halo of laurel-leaves and crown the head of Serena Williams.

Over the next fortnight, the US will crown its tennis champion. Place your bets now.

Serena Williams already holds the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and US Open titles. Now watch as she attempts to become the first player since Steffi Graf in 1988 to capture each of the sport's four major titles in a calendar year.

One more win and the world’s baby sister (you can’t monopolise her forever, Venus) would move Serena level with Graf’s 22 major championships.

She is the bookmakers’ favourite and she is our favourite.

But she is not everyone’s favourite.

A black woman in a sport so white, it only wears colour on its sleeves. Serena’s beautiful dominance (she has won major titles in her teens, twenties and thirties, so far) has thumbed its nose at racist notions of white superiority.

Want to invent a sport for white people to play at clubs garlanded by wisteria but surrounded by fences?

Want to invent a sport to reward white people for their endeavour by crossing their palms with rich, corporate-sponsored rewards?

That’s tennis.

Just look at Williams and blonde, Caucasian, tennis world number 3 Maria Sharapova, who has just pulled out of the US Open injured. The Serena and Maria show has rattled on in a world that needs confrontation to function.

Williams has dominated Sharapova. Utterly. The American lost to a then 17-year-old Sharapova in the 2004 Wimbledon final and then again in that season’s year-end WTA championships. Since then, however, the two have played 17 times and Serena has won them all.

Being white still gives you that old fiscal advantage, though.

Serena’s coffers filled up quite well between June 2014 and June 2015. She earned $24.6 million for her efforts with a racquet and a brand of fizzy drink. This placed her at 47th on business magazine Forbes’ list of the world’s highest-paid athletes.

Sharapova’s earnings from watches, electrical equipment and tennis clocked in at $29.7 million. This made her the 26th highest-paid athlete on the list.

If it is a level playing field and meritocracy that floats your boat, then note that Williams has pocketed $69.7 million of prize money during her career. That is double Sharapova has earned. The Russian ranks second of all-time, but she has earned half as much in actual tournaments.

Follow the money and Serena is twice as good as the next best player. She is just paid less for things she has no control over. Like her blackness.

The mythology goes that older sister Venus, who is also quite good, and baby Serena were introduced to the unlikeliest of sports for a black woman by dad Richard.

The whole yarn trades on racist stereoptypes - the black man from gang-ridden Compton in LA, who was sitting on his ass watching telly, then decided that he had two daughters of four to spare to create a money-spinning tennis conglomerate.

Yet any parent who has ever aspired towards a stratospheric sporting career for their child, yet been greeted by a total lack of talent when said child is faced with an approaching ball, will know that you cannot thrust greatness on anyone.

They either have it, or they don’t.

Serena has it. Venus has it. As a coach, dad Richard has it.

He has withdrawn from the coaching role but Serena is unequivocal.

“I think my father is probably the best coach ever because, if we talk about numbers, he’s got a lot and he’s only had two players. Imagine if he had three.”

Serena is shattering records but she has also shattered stereotypes. Black? Working class? A women? Thirty-four? Serena ticks all of the boxes that should have weighed her down and prevented any expectations she had from becoming reality.

She is on the verge of becoming the greatest. The greatest sportsperson of all time. The greatest role model of all time - for all of us.

Songwriter, record producer, fashion designer and all-round mogul Kanye West has just announced that he plans to run for president in 2020.

Hold on a minute, Mr West. 2020?

Serena Williams might have a gap in her diary by then. She will be ready for a tilt at the title of US President.

After all, Serena will have won everything else, she might as well.