SERENA EYES MOTHER OF ALL WINS
Does she have enough left for one last hurrah?
WHEN Serena Williams returned to the women’s tour early last spring the mission was simple: to win a 24th Grand Slam and to do so as a proud parent.
She arrived at the All England Club last week still on that mission, which has certainly not gone to the plan of 16 months ago. In that time she has failed to win a title of any description and her aura of invincibility has faded, for all the words on the cape she wore at the French Open: ‘Champion, Queen, Goddess and Mother’.
You suspect the US Open final nine months ago, which ended in acrimony and defeat at the hands of Naomi Osaka, was a telling blow from which it has been hard to recover.
Beyond the hyperbole, the more prosaic truth is that the American — 38 in September — is struggling to recreate what has gone before.
She has been battling a persistent knee injury, which is partly why she remains the lesser-spotted Serena.
Since coming back at Indian Wells in 2018, she has played only 12 tournaments, and of those she has completed a mere eight, pulling out of the other four. This lack of matchplay is increasingly a problem for Williams who, in terms of profile and achievements, still towers above the rest of the field. Only the fading figures of her sister Venus and Maria Sharapova compare.
Yet, however sporadic her appearances, a delve into the statistics shows that she is far from a spent force.
Benchmarked against the other leading players, she heads the list in percentage of points won on first serve (73.5 per cent). She is fifth on winning second serve points, and when it comes to returns she is second, winning 47.2 per cent of points.
Her problem has been when opponents are able to draw her into rallies, exploiting movement that has become more cumbersome. This was brilliantly exposed by Angelique Kerber in the Wimbledon final last year. The German
makes up the remarkable smorgasbord of Grand Slam winners in the past two and half years. There have been nine different champions in 10 Grand Slams, with Naomi Osaka the only one to repeat.
The women’s majors have become so unpredictable that they have started to resemble particularly chaotic versions of the Grand National, with unexpected fallers all over the place.
Osaka has just been deposed as world No 1, and after winning the Australian Open the brilliant 21-year-old Japanese has begun to cut a slightly more world-weary figure. She admitted at the French Open that she had struggled with the pressure of expectation.
So you wonder what will happen with the player who has seized the mantle — Ash Barty, the first Australian to have held the top spot since Evonne Goolagong in 1976.
Something of a free spirit, the last place Barty, who took a year out to play Big Bash cricket, was expected to win was on the clay of Paris, but she did so in the latest tale of the unexpected.
At Wimbledon, Barty and Serena are in the loaded top quarter of the draw, which could well provide the winner.
For Barty, much will depend on how she reacts to her new status. It may free her up or, like many of her fellow female champions of recent years, she may take a while to assimilate.
Such is her temperament there are grounds for thinking the former will happen. Yet as the bookmakers attest, the number of potential winners runs well into doubles figures. Anyone who claims they have a clear idea of who will be left standing a week on Saturday should be viewed with suspicion.
Speaking of uncertainties, there is no guarantee that Serena Williams, the greatest champion of all, will return to Wimbledon after this year.