For 10 years, it has been exceedingly easy to guess the outcome of a match between Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova. No rivalry—sorry, Serena fans, I meant match-up—between two Hall-of-Fame players has been so predictable. But as Williams’ winning streak has lengthened, from five to 10 to 15 consecutive victories, each seemingly more definitive than the last, it has also become more difficult to find new, ever snarkier ways of describing just how lopsided it is.
Leave it to Twitter to deliver on the snark front. As of Friday afternoon, it was clear that the most popular form of analysis before this year’s Australian Open final was to tweet a photo of a celebrity above the line, “Famous Person X looked like this the last time that Maria Sharapova beat Serena Williams.”
That last time was in the final of the WTA Championships in November 2004. I’ll add my own bit of historical snark by mentioning that the match took place nine days after John Kerry’s defeat in that year’s U.S. presidential election. The idea of Kerry as leader of the free world now seems about as strange as the idea of Sharapova beating Serena.