Black people have always had to be 'extra nice' to avoid being bullied by racists. Serena is obviously not 'extra nice' so any misbehaviour is met with outrage.
More than simply a race, Serena represents a certain establishment and status quo of tennis that has been challenged by other players, especially Osaka who is also of African heritage. Were it a white player instead of Osaka challenging her and beating her this often, you can easily imagine how even more tense things would be now (I think we can all agree on that). Serena doesn't need to be extra nice, not just because she's an unapologetic black woman (which is a good thing), but because her place in the sport - and that's more related to celebrity status - allows her to be and do whatever she damn well likes.
She's not in a position of fragility here, which I think is a good thing, but the appropriation of her "blackness", "womanhood" and "motherhood" by the powers to be have emptied her of all the revolutionary/transformative power - another form of non-fragility that is the opposite of being comfortable and a symbol of the status quo - she still wielded when I was a big fan of hers, back in the early 2000's. The very American "inspirational" discourse about everyone being able to accomplish their dreams (as long as those dreams are aligned with the late capitalist narrative), from a position of power, is not in the same category as your accomplishments themselves being a big "f*** you" to the establishment, as was once the case for Serena. I gather from your avatar that you might be a lefty, so I suppose you're familiar with the standpoint - that I share to some extent - that speaking truth to power from a position of segregation is the eternal struggle of the left, and that demanding the acquiescence of others from a position of power (what Serena does today) is already, in itself, an abandonment of lefty principles.
In a revolutionary position, even your worst instincts can sometimes be justified or used in some way to further the struggle for a just cause, but in a position of power - with all the establishment behind you - your worst instincts tend to be glossed over, justified, or even disguised as victimhood/courage/healthy competitiveness by all the apparatus that is there to protect your brand. She can more or less do what she wants because, while pointing the accusatory finger at a minority of obvious bigots who criticise her for clearly indefensible reasons, she knows full well every outburst, every bit of pettiness, every holier than thou attitude, will be excused or at least reinterpreted as victimhood/courage/healthy competitiveness by all those who have a vested interested in her brand.
But this is a systemic problem related to how our societies appropriate and defuse any potentially revolutionary force, I just use Serena as a visible expression of the phenomenon itself. In a way, this goes well beyond her, and it would be too much to ask of her to not fall in the same traps everyone else does.
