Despite all the drawbacks, she’s still Serena
Serena Williams is the greatest women’s tennis player in the history of the sport. She’s also a rusty, 38.9-year-old mother with a history of health problems, playing in the era of COVID-19 before empty stadiums. She’s holed up in a private home not far from Flushing Meadows, a bubble of her own making. Her daughter, Olympia, turned three on Tuesday, while Williams was struggling at the start of her match to beat the 97th-ranked player in the world.
As Chris Evert said on ESPN, “This is a woman who has a lot going on in her life.”
Williams eventually defeated Kristie Ahn, 7-5, 6-3, in the first round of the U.S. Open, but it wasn’t always pretty. Her footwork these days can look at times like Elaine Benes dancing on “Seinfeld.” At her worst, Serena doesn’t so much set herself for a shot as hurl herself at the ball. In the very first game Tuesday, she stumbled about, struck two easy forehands into the net and double-faulted twice. She was broken, then got away with it, because Ahn is not Karolina Pliskova.
‘I feel like I have been focused, but I’ve been losing matches on literally one point that can swing a match,” she said. “I wanted to be Serena-focused from the first point to the last point, no matter what happens.”
That focus, that game face, is what makes Serena, Serena. And she will get better, of course. She got better already on Tuesday, as the match went along. But anybody who thinks Serena is a solid favorite at this U.S. Open hasn’t been watching tennis very closely.
Of course, she can win this thing. It would be wonderful if she did. The bookies list her as the top choice at around 5-to-1 – not a huge vote of confidence, but they don’t really believe in anybody else. Six of the top 10 women have skipped this event
and Serena’s serve is a weapon unmatched by any current player.
Form, however, is definitely not on her side.
“The problem with aging athletes is that while they still have purple patches, they will have some bad patches, bad days as well,” noted Mary Carillo, who is working the Open for Amazon UK. “We see it with Roger and Venus and even Serena. She is playing less and less these last few years, and winning less, too. Her form can seem fraught, anxious rather than eager. The locker room still respects her so much, and she has earned that respect. But she puts so much pressure on herself to win even more.”
That self-imposed burden has created famous meltdowns at this tournament. Strange, unpleasant things seem to happen to Williams at the U.S. Open. The weird calls, and her ensuing tantrums, are legend — and frankly, a lot of guilty fun for journalists.
In 2018, she called a chair umpire “a thief,” after her coach was caught giving Serena hand signals during the match. In 2011, she lost a critical point to Sam Stosur for a “hindrance” penalty, after screaming during a point. “You’re ugly on the inside,” she told the umpire then. “You’re a hater and unattractive inside.”
In 2009, she famously freaked out at the Japanese lineswoman over a foot fault call and threatened to jam a tennis ball down the poor woman’s throat.
All this makes Williams Must-See TV, even when there is no audience in the stadium.
“It’s such a big stadium, it’s a scene, it’s still a Grand Slam.,” she said, after the match. “It’s intense out there. I love my job. At the end of the day, I love what I do. One of these days it’s going to end and I love being out there.”
Williams waited extra hours to play, because Andy Murray had a marathon comeback victory before her scheduled match on Ashe. Serena said she didn’t mind, that she was rooting hard for her sometimes doubles partner.
“I know what it’s like to be down, I know what it’s like to be injured,” she said, comparing herself to Murray. “I know what it’s like to be counted out.”
The win on Tuesday gave Williams the record for U.S. Open victories, 102, one better than Evert. But Williams hasn’t won a major since the 2017 Australian Open, where she was pregnant with Olympia. Since giving birth, Williams has reached four major finals and lost them all. Those aren’t the most worrisome results. Serena has been losing lately to the sorts of players that she once effortlessly mopped off the court.
She lost to 21st-ranked Maria Sakkari at the Western and Southern tournament in Flushing Meadows. A week before that, she fell to 116th-ranked Shelby Rogers at Lexington. Pre-pandemic, she lost to 41st-ranked Anastasij Sevastova at Fed Cup; and to 29thranked Qiang Wong (29) at this year’s Australian Open.
She hasn’t played a top 20 player in more than a year. And still, she is the best story by far at this Open.
In a perfect tennis world, Serena would already have claimed her 24th and 25th major titles, surpassing that antigay sourpuss, Margaret Court. Then maybe a young, transcendent star would have come along, giving the women’s draw a structural and narrative arc that it seems to lack at the moment. We are so accustomed to an orderly succession of transcendent stars: King… Evert… Navratilova… Graf… Venus… Serena… then, nobody.
Where is the next great player? Five different women have won the last five majors. Serena has been granted a welcome, open window, far longer than the one extended to stars such as Evert or Monica Seles.
Serena survived on Tuesday, finished strong. She is now 20-0 in firstround Open matches. Her next match should be another gimme. By the third round, though, Serena’s matches figure to be a coin flip.
Heads, she wins. Tails, she’s Elaine, dancing at the company party.