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. Its not a far cry to imagine a young boy at the Williams sisters Los Angeles tennis academy dreaming of one day becoming Serena. We should all be so lucky. Cheap Jerseys 2020 . By having more great seasons. Manning was the only unanimous choice for the 2013 Associated Press NFL All-Pro team Friday. Fake Jerseys 2020 . - Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco is not a fan of his teams use of the wildcat formation, saying "it makes you look like a high school offence. http://www.jerseyscheapcustom.com/ . One game after a miserable showing in Oklahoma City, Gay tied a career high with 41 points and the Sacramento Kings cruised to a 114-97 victory at the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday night. Fake China Jerseys . Its sharpness matched my mind. This was no night to go to sleep. Wholesale Authentic Jerseys . Defencemen Drew Doughty, Shea Weber and forward Ryan Getzlaf also scored for the Canadians, who started their gold-medal defence 2-0. Goalie Roberto Luongo, getting the call in place of Game 1 starter Carey Price, was solid when needed in making 23 saves for the shutout. UCLA added to its top-five recruiting class on Friday, as top-50 prospect Cody Riley committed to the Bruins.Riley chose Steve Alfords program over Kansas, USC, Oklahoma and Connecticut. He visited Kansas and USC in September, then took his final official visit to UCLA last weekend. The Bruins had long been considered the favorite for Riley, as they had been among the first schools involved in his recruitment and remained highly interested the past couple of years.Riley, a 6-foot-7 power forward from Sierra Canyon School in Chatsworth, California, is ranked No. 45 in the ESPN 100. He does most of his work around the basket and on the offensive glass and averaged 13.3 points, 7.9 rebounds and 1.1 blocks for the Phoenix Phamily on the Nike EYBL circuit this past spring and summer.UCLA had the No. 5-ranked recruiting class in the initial ESPN rankings on Wednesday, and Riley will solidify that position. Alford noww has three ESPN 100 prospects in his 2017 class, with Riley joining point guard Jaylen Hands (No.dddddddddddd 31) and power forward Jalen Hill (No. 50), along with three-star small forward Li Angelo Ball. If UCLA does finish in the top 10 for 2017, it will mark the fourth time in the past six years that the Bruins have had a top-10 recruiting class.The Bruins have two seniors in Isaac Hamilton and Bryce Alford, as well as two potential one-and-done freshmen in Lonzo Ball and T.J. Leaf, so the reinforcements might be necessary in the 2017-18 season.UCLA is also still involved with a sizable group of five-star prospects, including Gary Trent Jr. (No. 8), Brian Bowen (No. 13) and Kris Wilkes (No. 14), as well as four-star Charles OBannon Jr. (No. 35), the son of the former UCLA great. ' ' '