Serena Williams Collects The Crown As Sportsperson Of The Year!

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Serena Williams has been crowned Sports Illustrated’s Sportsperson Of The Year.

We will all agree that Serena Williams is one of the greatest athletes in the world. She’s had one of the greatest years in sports. For this, Sports Illustrated named her the 2015 Sportsperson of the Year!

They highlighted some of her achievements in this article:

“Williams, 34, won three major titles, went 53–3 and provided at least one new measure of her tyrannical three-year reign at No. 1. For six weeks this summer—and for the first time in the 40-year history of the WTA rankings—Williams amassed twice as many ranking points as the world No. 2; at one point that gap grew larger than the one between No. 2 and No. 1,000. Williams’s 21 career Grand Slam singles titles are just one short of Steffi Graf’s Open-era record. Such numbers are reason enough for Sports Illustrated to name Serena Williams its 2015 Sportsperson of the Year.”

She’s the first black woman and third individual to win the award solo.

As usual, with successful people, haters gonna hate.

Only a black woman could achieve a 53-3 record in a calendar year at the highest level of sports and have her greatness doubted.#Serena

— Charlotte Clymer 🇺🇦 (@cmclymer) December 14, 2015

Serena undoubtedly deserves this title, but some disagree.

According to angry track fans on Twitter, a three-year-old American thoroughbred racehorse should be the actual winner.

Very disappointed to see Sport's Illustrated editors ignored the fans vote, and chose Serena Williams over American Pharoah – Article coming

— Brian Zipse (@Zipseatthetrack) December 14, 2015

@jazz3162 @SInow

Hey SI this is what Pharoah and all his fans think of your choice. #haters pic.twitter.com/UDmyA3NNq0— Tonya Moore (@onemoore) December 14, 2015

Much of the outrage resulted from the fact that Sports Illustrated had polled readers about whom they thought deserved the award, and American Pharoah received the most votes. The poll had no bearing on who would actually win, in reality.

But Serena’s fans vehemently disagree. They believe that she more than deserves this award.

@Zipseatthetrack are you mad??? Or are you REALLY mad?? Hahahaha shut up.

— C. (@_CEEworld) December 14, 2015

https://twitter.com/essdotX/status/676401560642060288

They’ve also pointed out that American Pharoah, as talented as he is at racing, has no idea what awards even mean – because he is a horse.

They can just tell American Pharoah that he won. He's a horse, he won't know the difference

— Jake Rapoport (@steaker) December 14, 2015

We say touché!

Serena keeps breaking and setting records. Keep slaying Queen Slayrena!!!

[zkk_poll post=13748 poll=content_block_standard_format_11] Featured image via Serena Williams.