Serena running a race against time
This is a tennis match drenched in history.
Some of that history Serena Williams wants to forget.
She wants to remember each and every one of the 23 Grand Slam titles she owns, more than any other player in history other than Australian great Margaret Court, who has 24. But Williams would prefer to forget her crushing defeat at the hands of Naomi Osaka in the U.S. Open final last year, not to mention her despicable on-court behaviour while going down to that one-sided loss.
She also wants to forget being beaten handily in the past two Wimbledon finals, this year by Simona Halep and last year by Angelique Kerber, both in straight sets.
Williams certainly doesn’t want to remember that she hasn’t won any tournaments in 33 months, and none since returning to the women’s tour in early 2018 after giving birth to her daughter.
She’d also rather forget her abrupt, curious retirement just four games into last month’s Rogers Cup final against Canada’s Bianca Andreescu, one that came after she showed no hint of any physical distress. She just walked slowly to her chair, sat down and indicated she was done.
Was it the moment that made her back tighten up? Only she knows.
While she may well be the greatest player in the history of women’s tennis, her finest work occurred before she temporarily left the game on maternity leave. She knows Kim Clijsters once returned from giving birth to win the U.S. Open, and would obviously love for that to be part of her legacy as well.
So history hovers over this tennis match, and we haven’t even mentioned the fact Canada is waiting and hoping for its first Grand Slam singles champion. Eugenie Bouchard made the Wimbledon final in 2014 and was trounced by Petra Kvitova. Milos Raonic made the Wimbledon final in 2016 and lost to Andy Murray in straight sets.
Now it’s Andreescu’s turn. She is either the favourite as the feisty and talented rising star of women’s tennis, or the inexperienced, injury-prone underdog up against the power and career brilliance of Williams.
Andreescu consoled Williams that day at the Aviva Centre last month when the American superstar packed it in down 3-1 in the first set. But Andreescu was going to win even if Williams had played on. It was obvious very early in that match. Williams’ backers will say that’s because Serena was suffering physically, although that didn’t seem to be the case.
Either way, Andreescu won’t be the least bit intimidated by Williams on Saturday. Asked about her chances in the final after beating Belinda Bencic on Thursday night, the 19-year-old Canadian replied that if she plays her game well, she has a good chance to win.
Not a word about Williams. No clichés about the daunting task of beating a legend.
For Williams, who has been dominant at this year’s U.S. Open, this is a massive moment in the final stages of her career that she’ll have had two days to ponder. She’ll be 38 by the time the Australian Open rolls around in January, her next chance to tie the great Court if she can’t do it Saturday afternoon in Arthur Ashe Stadium.
That so many, particularly Billie Jean King, want Williams to erase Court’s name from the history books is also part of this story. Court has been villainized in tennis circles for her intolerant stance against samesex marriage and gay rights. King, among others, continues to advocate that Court’s name should be removed from one of the main stadiums at the Australian Open.
Next year, despite the controversy, Court is expected to be feted around the globe for her 1970 sweep of the Grand Slam tennis events. Not surprisingly, King said Thursday her dream is that Williams wins her 24th major title on Saturday and then breaks Court’s record in Melbourne, Court’s backyard, early next year.
So there is external pressure on Williams to get this done, in addition to her own ambitions and desires. Based on her play the past fortnight, she is still a powerhouse. But based on those three Grand Slam defeats over the past 14 months, all in straight sets, she has not been the closer she was earlier in her spectacular career.
Can she get across the finish line one more time?
She’s got the perfect situation to get No. 24 on Saturday. She’s playing against a 19-year-old competing in her first U.S. Open final in front of a massive, noisy and unruly New York crowd sure to be proWilliams.
She’s doubly dangerous in revenge mode. In a match against Osaka last month at the Rogers Cup, the first meeting between the two women since that infamous U.S. Open contest, Williams won with relative ease.
The only elements working against Williams are the prodigious talents of Andreescu and the inner doubts of Serena herself. One or both could trip her up.
Now’s her chance to get history back on her side. Maybe her final chance.