Celebrity magazine GQ, which named tennis star Serena Williams as their “Woman of the Year”, has sparked a social media controversy after the word “woman” was used with quotation marks on the cover.

The 37-year-old Williams returned to the circuit earlier this year after giving birth to a girl and reached the finals of Wimbledon and US Open.

GQ started including women as part of their “Men of Year” honour list from 2003. This year, the magazine has named Michael B Jordan, Henry Golding and Jonah Hill as the Men of the Year.

In the past, Williams had spoken about how she would get called a man due to her muscular body and had mentioned the same in one of her reddit posts.

However, what got social media in a frenzy was the cover of the magazine with Williams wearing a black dress and had “woman” written in quotes, with many feeling it was insensitive.

Though both Williams and the magazine have not commented on the controversy yet, CNN explained that the typography on the cover was handwritten by designer Virgil Abloh, who uses quotation marks in his works.

Abloh had earlier worked with Williams and Nike to design the tennis player’s US Open outfit, which had “Serena” in quotes on her trainers and “Logo” on her dress.