Greatest athlete of all-time? It’s hard to argue against Williams

The greatest match I saw Serena Williams play was one in which she wasn’t very good.

At Wimbledon two summers ago, Williams came to London after winning the Australian Open and then the French Open. At 33, she was trying to do the one thing she had never done before — win all four Grand Slam titles in a calendar year — and it was all anyone wanted to talk about. Anyone other than Williams. She pushed past all questions about the Slam, saying it was hard enough to focus on one tournament at a time, and it was evident that she was feeling unusual pressure.

And then, in the third round at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, she found herself up against Heather Watson, a 22-year-old Brit who was playing out of her mind. Watson won three straight games to take the second set of their match and then the first three games of the deciding third set.

It was one of those moments that happens at a Grand Slam in which there is tennis happening all over the place, but suddenly everyone is focused on the same thing.

Henman’s Hill, the sloping expanse of grass on one side of the club in front of a video wall, was teeming with locals severely refreshed with beer and, this being Wimbledon, Champagne. The scene was bananas. One British paper, in its overwrought way, would compare Williams to a “wounded lioness,” but the gladiator imagery wasn’t far off. Watson went up 40-0 in the following game and the place was throbbing for the kill.

Then Williams roared back. She screamed and slugged her way around Centre Court, alternately shouting with exasperation and pumping her fist in exclamation. She would win the final three games of the match to take the third set 7-5.

“I’ve never heard boos here before,” Williams would say afterward. One imagines the crowd didn’t like it when the lion fought back at the Colosseum, either.

I thought of that match when Williams shocked the Internet this week with her photo that suggested she was 20 weeks pregnant.

Now 35, she won the Australian Open for the seventh time in January, which means she was in the early stages of pregnancy when she won her 23rd Grand Slam, breaking the record she held with Steffi Graf for the most in the Open era.

It is at once one of the most amazing things an athlete has ever done and yet also not that surprising at all: if Serena knew a baby was coming, she also knew the tournament in Melbourne might be her last chance to break that record.

Like on that summer day in London, Williams has shown a ridiculous ability to win even when the odds are stacked against her.

Down a break to someone 11 years younger in front of a braying mob? Compete in a Slam event with a little Serena in the womb? Done and done.

A couple of months after that Wimbledon win, John McEnroe, the former champion and current television broadcaster, was asked about Williams’ place in the game. He didn’t think she was the best tennis player of alltime, male or female, he said. He thought she might be the greatest athlete of the past 100 years.

There are few others who could reasonably lay claim to the title. The thing about Williams is she is so dominant in her sport that the only person who has been able to slow her down is herself.

When she won the Australian Open in 2003 for her fourth straight Slam and her fifth overall at the age of 21, it was evident she had surpassed the ability of her older sister Venus and was as close to unbeatable as an athlete can be.

Injuries developed, though, as did other interests and Williams entered a period of years in which she was rarely at the top of her game. She won just two Slams in the four seasons from 20042007. At the time, when it often seemed as though Williams put as much time into her clothing and fashion ventures as she did into practising tennis, this was seen as a significant blot on her resume.

But the passage of years and Williams’ return to the top of the sport puts that period of indifference in a different light. She has won 10 of her Slams, including the one while pregnant, after the age of 30.

She crushed everyone in her early 20s, did some other stuff for a while and then crushed everyone again in her early 30s.

Along the way, she has seen off countless rivals into their retirements. Martina Hingis is just a year older than Serena and she was the best player in the world when Williams broke into the top 10. Hingis last won a singles Slam title in 1999. Williams won one in 1999, too. And then 22 more.

A couple of months after that match against Watson at Wimbledon, Serena was back in another tough fight, this time in the semis at the U.S. Open.

Again, she wasn’t playing her best against a weaker opponent, this time Italian Roberta Vinci, but this time the crowd in New York was squarely behind her. She smashed, she screamed, everyone waited for her to go for the kill shot.

And then it didn’t happen. Williams lost and didn’t get that calendar Slam.

I thought of that match this week, too. News that Serena will have a kid, like that loss, is a reminder that she’s human. Sometimes it is easy to forget.