Documentary shines light on Williams sisters
Filmmakers given rare access to two of tennis’s most talked-about stars
There’s a scene in the new documentary about tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams where Serena is on a treadmill after a U.S. Open match ripping into her hitting partner. She’s dressing him down for failing to give his best on the practice court and keep her on par with opponents. And this is after a victory. It’s a rare glimpse into the ultra-competitive mindset of the world’s current No. 1-ranked women’s player and how she continues to stay atop that perch. It also shows the kind of access co-directors Michelle Major and Maiken Baird were permitted for their film Venus and Serena: Icons, Rivals, Champions, Sisters, which opens Wednesday in select theatres across Canada.
After three years of attempting to convince the Williams sisters to agree to the project, Major and Baird were finally given the green light by Venus to follow them through the 2011 tennis season.
It turns out to be an emotionally eventful year as Serena battles back from blood clot surgery and plays in a U.S. Open final that will be remembered more for her outburst at a chair umpire — similar to her 2009 U.S. Open meltdown at a line judge — than Samantha Stosur’s eventual victory.
It proves to be tough year for Venus also, as the older sister deals with the onset of an autoimmune disease that has slowed her career ever since.
Major says it wasn’t strictly tennis accomplishments that drew her to the Williamses, but a desire to tell the story of how they got to the game’s elite tier. “Both of us thought it was a great American story and a great human story. We really didn’t think of it as a tennis story, per se,” she said.
“It just happened to be this story of two great women and how they overcome and become something great, despite all odds. The elements of the story and the mythology surrounding how they got to that point was what really interested us.”
The film digs up archival footage of the young sisters hitting balls with their father, Richard Williams, on the very non-luxury public courts in downtown Los Angeles.
He later moved them to a tennis academy in West Palm Beach, Fla., where they live to this day, to work briefly with a coach named Rick Macci.
Macci adds fuel to the common assumption that Richard Williams is a dictator and control freak who oversees all aspects of Venus and Serena’s lives.
Major says this may have been the case in the past and he is certainly still involved in their training. But Venus, 33, and Serena, 31, didn’t need his permission to get involved with the doc.
“Their father is a daily part of their lives, but they made the decision to do the film,” she said. Richard Williams is often credited for having played a major role in developing his daughters’ game, through tireless practise and unconventional training methods, the film shines an intriguing light on how much their mother, Oracene Price, factored in their success.
Price is shown on the practice court at tournaments like Wimbledon, giving her daughters calm suggestions and advice to counter-balance their father’s ornery bluster.
“(Oracene) was the one who instilled the mental toughness in them and courage,” Major said. “And she is extremely protective as well, keeping them from a lot of things, and also (instilling) a pride in who they were as black young women.”