Driven by willpower, Williams bandwagon is on the move again

● Refusal to be beaten propels rusty former champion to victory

If Wimbledon championships are won on sheer force of will then Serena Williams must be the nailed on favourite for the title.

As only she can, she simply refused to be beaten yesterday, coming through a particularly scrappy scrap 7-5, 6-3 against Arantxa Rus of Holland.

Rus, a lefty from Delft with a world ranking of 105, may never have set the world alight (her career high ranking is No 61 and that was six years ago) but she has been playing matches all year. Some she wins, some she loses but she keeps on playing. And that helps. But yesterday was not about Rus, pictured. As is always the case with the sport’s greatest player, it was all about Williams.

The first-round encounter was only Williams’ eighth match of the year. It was also the first grass court match the former champion had played since 2016. On a blustery day, she looked rusty but she still looked better than she had in her first match at the French Open. That, though, would not have been hard.

But what she went on to achieve in Paris, kicking on massively match by match until a strained pectoral muscle stopped her in the fourth round, was far beyond anyone’s wildest predictions. The fact that she looked a bit ropey yesterday, then, counted for little. She won and that was all that mattered – step by step, round by round, she thinks she can start to build as she did in Paris.

As for the serving shoulder, that was holding up under the strain. Williams only arrived in London ten days ago, and it was only then that she tried her first few, tentative serves to test her sore pectoral muscle. Since then, she has been upping the ante but, as yet, the shot is not its usual, explosive self.

“I took a lot of time off with serving,” she said. “I didn’t serve at all. I took some time off of tennis, as well. I just started serving when I got here. “But I think, as time will go on, it will get better. My arm is doing much better. My serve is a little playing catchup, but it’s doing better than I could have hoped, to be honest. It’s all on the right track.”

“I don’t think I was at my best today, but I’m practising much better. I feel as long as I keep going, hopefully I’ll be able to get there.”

In Paris, she had raised more than a few eyebrows by appearing in a black catsuit. This, it turned out, was not just a fashion statement but also a medical necessity – the suit was actually an allin-one compression suit. Following the birth of her daughter, Olympia, last September, Williams suffered a pulmonary embolism and almost died. Wearing a compression suit now helps with her circulation and enables her to play.

Yet Wimbledon have rules. Many, many rules. And the rules surrounding on-court attire are very specific – catsuits simply don’t cut it in SW19. Anne White tried it once back in the 1980s and was told politely, but firmly, never to try it again.

To get around this, Williams wore flesh coloured tights under her pristine white tennis dress and will continue to do so for as long as the doctors tell her to.

With the right clothes, an improving serve and the experience of winning the title seven times, all seemed set fair for the current world No 181. What she had not taken into account was how nervous and frustrated she would feel when the error count rose and Rus took the lead in the second set.

Not so much grunting as roaring with every shot, she virtually demanded that the ball landed where she wanted it to – if it did not, there would be hell to pay.

And slowly but surely, Williams reeled her rival in.

“I feel towards the end I just was trying to be more calm,” she said. “I wanted to do so well. Sometimes that works against you. I feel like I maybe was just overly anxious and overtrying, overdoing it.

“Not only do I expect to win, I expect to win emphatically. Sometimes I put too much pressure on myself, I’m overanxious. It’s really just about learning that balance for me still.”

Step one has been taken and the Williams juggernaut is moving on in the draw. 0 Serena Williams roars with delight as she wins another point on her way to a straight-sets victory over Arantxa Rus yesterday.