Late last year, Serena Williams appeared poised to be just the fourth women since the inception of Grand Slam tournaments in tennis to win all four of the major tournaments in one calendar year, also known as a Calendar Grand Slam.
Unfortunately for Serena and the millions that tuned in to potentially witness history, she was defeated handily in the U.S. Open Semifinals last year by Roberta Vinci in three sets. It was a shocking upset; Serena of course was ranked #1 in the world while Vinci was unranked at the time of the match. So, to help make sense of the history-preventing loss, social media quickly invoked the “Drake curse,” which of course related to Drake‘s presence at the U.S. Open, where he was presumably supporting Serena, his alleged love interest at the time, on her quest. The Toronto rapper was scarcely seen, if at all, at the three previous Grand Slam tournaments of 2015, all of which Williams won, and her loss coinciding with his attendance sparked a meme and joke spree similar to the awkward relationship Kevin Durant has with Lil B.
In the new issue of Glamour, on which Serena is the cover subject, the tennis star–who, incidentally, just suffered another upset loss in this weekend’s French Open Final–refutes the fact that such a curse exists, citing the fact that it’s “not fair” to Drake.
No. I don’t think that was fair. I’m the one who’s playing, who’s making mistakes or making winners. I’m not one to blame anyone else for anything. And I don’t think anyone else should either. I played a really good opponent that day. And I wasn’t at my best.
Plus, the sports world moved on from this alleged curse long ago. Drake’s now got his hands full with being Vine’d to death after LeBron James barked in his direction during the Cavs dismantling of the Raptors in the Eastern Conference Finals.
You can read Serena’s full Glamour interview here.
