Williams smashing all the age questions
Contemporaries and greats like Navratilova amazed by U.S. star’s staying power
TORONTO— The questions were coming, the dreaded questions, and Venus Williams knew it.
An early warning was the announcer at the recent Rogers Cup here, who for some reason felt compelled to introduce Williams as “37 years young.” And then a reporter broached the subject more directly, asking, “Do you ever just get tired of people always kind of pointing out your age?”
Williams leaned her chin on her hand and sighed.
“Yeah,” she said. “I mean, that started happening, like, 10 years ago, minimum, or more, since I was 25 or so.”
Williams, always polite, has given versions of this answer before. This time, in her gentle voice, she reminded her inquisitors that age doesn’t matter — and why would it, when she is ranked ninth in the world and still has so much to offer?
“These things I know: that I’m quite strong and I’m quite capable,” she said. “So that’s all I need.”
Williams, who turned 37 in June, has won seven major singles titles, including five at Wimbledon and two at the U.S. Open, which begins Monday in New York. She has reached two major finals this year — at the Australian Open and at Wimbledon — and is having her best season in years. She can’t explain why, or at least she won’t explain why.
“There are a lot of explanations,” she said. “But I all I can say is that I’m grateful.”
Williams is obviously much closer to the end of her career than the beginning. How close, only she knows. So it’s natural to wonder if this tournament or that one will be her last hurrah. It’s appropriate to feel nostalgic.
Soon Venus’ younger sister Serena, 35, will begin to hear this when-willshe-retire talk, when she returns from having her first child.
But here’s a way for players to navigate the tricky path of daring to age while the world watches: They should study Venus.
So it somehow feels wrong in this moment, now that Venus Williams is back at the top of her game — a Grand Slam finalist again, a top-10 player, a successful businesswoman who quietly earned a college degree and is working on her master’s — to focus on her age or suggest that this should be her final chapter.
If there is one player who could understand the burden of competing as a champion whose age has become the story, it’s another woman who made it to the Wimbledon final at 37. That’s Martina Navratilova, whose last major final came in 1994.
“You could see that she doesn’t validate herself as a human being based on if she wins or loses, and I think neither did I,” the 60-year-old Nav- ratilova said. “You just don’t go around thinking of yourself as a winner, or better than anyone else.”
In June, Williams was involved in a serious car crash in Florida. A 78year-old passenger in the other car later died from his injuries. Initially, police ruled Williams was at fault in the crash. Then, right in the middle of Wimbledon, they said maybe she wasn’t. An investigation is ongoing, and Williams was sued by the man’s family for wrongful death.
Had Williams crumbled, it would have been forgivable. And, yes, Williams did break down during a Wimbledon news conference when asked about the crash.
But she then responded by playing better, making the Wimbledon final.
“I don’t know how she does it,” Caroline Wozniacki said, adding that Williams amazed her more and more each day.
The constant questions about Williams’ age merely add to that tension. If a player loses a set at 25, Navratilova said, “it’s because you just didn’t play well.”
“But if you have that loss at 35, it’s because you are old and tired.”
Maybe that is why Williams always seems so guarded when she answers questions about her play, or her personal life, or her suddenly conspicuous proximity to 40.
What motivates her to keep playing after all these years? “I love the game,” she said. “It’s very simple.”