Being engaged is unreal – but I will not let this happiness affect my focus, insists Williams
World No 2 is determined not to allow her new love match to ruin competitive
O edge, writes Simon Briggs n this equivalent day 12 months ago, The Sunday Telegraph reported on Serena Williams’s “bleak and grouchy” mood. Last year, she came into the Australian Open with so many concerns over her form and fitness that the bookmakers were quoting her at a remote 4-1 for the title.
The contrast with the 2017 Williams could hardly be more marked. Meeting the world’s media for the first time this season, she was buoyant and bubbly, particularly when asked about the big event that had dominated her offseason: her engagement to the internet entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian.
“It’s been really great,” she said, with a girlish smile. “I just didn’t want to think about it until after Australia. Grand slams mean a lot to me.
“It’s almost a little unreal right now,” Williams added, “because I haven’t taken it in. I’m being rather selfish and focused on my career. It happened right in the middle of pre-season. I was doing training, cardio, all kinds of stuff. Now I’m on the road, already back at work. I don’t want to get too happy because I want to stay focused.”
Williams had broken the news herself in the most fitting manner, sending a message via Reddit, the social-media platform that Ohanian co-founded in 2005. She posted a blank-verse poem, describing how she had returned home to find her bag packed and a “carriage” awaiting. From there, the couple flew to Rome so that Ohanian could propose at the same table where “our stars first collided”.
It was a romantic tale, and an unusual incidence of Williams shedding some light on her personal life. Some 18 months into the relationship, few outside her intimate circle even knew that it existed until she chose to make it public in this unexpectedly artistic style. “I’m actually just a really good writer,” she joked, towards the end of yesterday’s press conference. “So if you guys want any tips, I’m around.” compelling spectacle in the game. And many of the leading players have offered their support and encouragement, perhaps realising that a committed Kyrgios could become the sport’s greatest asset since the emergence of Roger Federer.
“I won’t give him that much advice just because I think he needs to do it all by himself,” Federer told a Channel Seven interviewer this week. “It’s the unknown with Nick. I think that’s always going to be intriguing for people to follow. I think he’s one of the biggest talents we have in the game right now and I just hope he can make the most of it with what he has and become a future Hall of Famer.”
Such aspirations seem a way off, even if Kyrgios might reply that he has plenty of time left at 21. Both he and Tomic need to be more disciplined with their training, because this sport has become bewilderingly physical in the past few years. Recent statistical analysis by the Game Insight Group ranked the leading men according to the energy they expend on the court. Inevitably, the two who finished on top were Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic.
In theory, both Australians ought to be capable of covering the court more effectively. Kyrgios, in particular, has a loose and languid athleticism that would make him a nightmare to play against if only it were harnessed properly. But that would require a serious investment of time, something he has been reluctant to make thus far.
As Kyrgios said yesterday: “I know I can beat anyone on the day.” His unpredictability is enough to make him tennis’s most fascinating enigma.
But as the tattoo on his right arm points out, “Time is running out”. To be a sporting great you need to beat everyone, every day. The level of secrecy maintained by Williams’s camp is a lesson to any undercover agent. Occasionally, though, rumours slip out. During the first two years of her professional relationship with coach Patrick Mouratoglou, she was understood to be dating him as well as employing his tactics. Will Williams’s new status affect her day job as she chases a record 23rd slam title? Judging by her answers yesterday, she is wary of too much contentment, because she fears it will make her go soft on the court. Asked whether she needed a little anger inside to spur her on, she replied: “I wouldn’t call it anger, but I would definitely say drive and focus. What’s the word? Sacrifice. Yeah, sacrifices are what you definitely have to have.” Gauging her form is an impossible task, as there is so little data to work with. Yet she is not alone there. Of the four enduring tennis stars from the early 2000s, not one made it through to the end of last season. Maria Sharapova’s absence might have been meldonium-related, but Roger Federer opted to rest his knee after Wimbledon, and Rafael Nadal had wrist trouble. Williams called time after the US Open. Her left knee had given her “serious problems”, she told reporters after a tame semi-final exit to Karolina Pliskova. The cartilage is known to be an issue, as you might expect after 22 years of professional tennis. And when she returned to action in Auckland earlier this month she won only a single match – against world No 69 Pauline Parmentier – before going out to Madison Brengle in violently windy conditions. Lack of match practice could be an issue when she faces Belinda Bencic on Tuesday. But Mouratoglou says he is confident she will be ready, on the basis of thorough pre-season preparation. He also told the New York Times that her excitement about her private life could help supply inspiration . “Players need stability because everything is changing every day: countries, surface, opponents, conditions,” Mouratoglou said. “It’s difficult, and when you have a lot of stability, you feel better. I’m happy for her because I feel that she’s happy, there’s no reason why it wouldn’t positively affect her tennis.”
‘I’ve based my sport on my ability. There are fitter players than me who are outside the world’s top 100’ ‘I didn’t want to think about it until after Australia. I’m being rather selfish and focused on my career’