Evergreen venus still parading her genius after all these years
The 20-year veteran is on the brink of making grand slam history, writes Daniel Schofield
On June 28 1997, Cool Britannia was in full swing, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone had just been released by an unknown JK Rowling and Venus Williams made her first appearance at Wimbledon.
Dubbed the “Ghetto Cinderella” by her father, Williams was already been spoken of as the Next Big Thing in women’s tennis. Reebok had already signed her to a multi-million-dollar contract when she turned professional as a 14-year-old three years earlier. In honour of her debut at the
All England Club, she had her braids adorned with purple and green beads.
Yet the trinkets made no difference as Williams suffered a 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 first-round defeat to Poland’s Magdalena Grzybowska, ranked 32 places below her. From being a set and a break up, the 17-year-old lost six straight games and was subject to a scathing review from one American newspaper: “She hurried points. She failed to follow her intimidating serve into the net. She sailed backhands long. She tried forehand slice approach shots from impossible angles. She blew seven break-point chances in the third set, her concentration waning at critical moments.”
Williams was less concerned. “I’m not that frustrated,” she said. “I saw my first Wimbledon. There’ll be many more to come. I’ll do better as the year goes on.” Those would prove to be prophetic words. Within three months, she had reached the final of the US Open against another wunderkind, Martina Hingis. Within three years, she had claimed her first Wimbledon title. And here she is 20 years later preparing to contest her 16th grand slam final.
With seven grand slam singles titles – including five at Wimbledon – and four Olympic gold medals, her place as an all-time great is secure. Had her little sister Serena, who was apparently more interested in reading a book than watching her lose to Grzybowska, not seized the mantle of the Greatest Of All Time, Venus may well have made it her own. Seven of her defeats in grand slam finals have come to Serena, the latest earlier this year in Melbourne. Together, they have won 14 grand slam titles.
Yet more history beckons. At 37, Williams is the oldest woman to reach a Wimbledon final since Martina Navratilova in 1994. Should she beat Garbine Muguruza, she will be the oldest grand slam champion in the Open era.
It is customary to compare how old her opponents were when she made her debut here – three were born in 1997 – an exercise you sense she slightly resents. At the Australian Open this year, when Sam Smith asked how she keeps all the youngsters at bay, Williams responded: “I don’t know. I like to think I’m good at this. They haven’t had the years that I’ve had yet, the grey hairs that I’m dying, the wrinkles I’m hiding.”
For any individual, such longevity would be considered remarkable, but for Williams to have made two grand slam finals this year practically defies belief given that she was diagnosed as suffering from Sjogren’s syndrome, a debilitating auto-immune disease which can cause her to feel lethargic and lack strength, in 2011. That came during an eight-year stretch in which she failed to reach a grand slam final. Between 2011 and 2015, she did not reach a quarter-final.
“If Venus wins it, I think that this one might mean more to her than any other one just because of everybody writing her off, no one thinking she could ever continue to play the level that she wanted to play,” David Witt, her coach, told the New York Times.
Consider, too, her involvement in a fatal traffic accident last month that led to the death of 78-year-old.
‘If Venus wins it, I think that this one might mean more to her than any other one’
The police initially declared that Williams was at fault for the crash before retracting that statement. A lawsuit is pending.
So how does she do it? Like Roger Federer, Williams has cut back on her schedule to give herself the best possible chance of success. Ahead of Wimbledon, she was confident enough to skip a grass court warm-up to attend a business conference in Australia.
Her training load has also been reduced but is now more focused. Yesterday at practice, she was hitting with four male partners, each of whom performed a specialised role in serving, returning and volleying.
On court, she focuses almost exclusively on her strengths, particularly her serve and baseline game. She consciously preserves her energy. If a ball is out of reach, she will not expend the effort to reach it. Mark Kovacs, a renowned sports scientist, compares her to NBA legend Michael Jordan. “Her
game style is conducive to playing for a long period,” Kovacs said. “She has the power, so can keep most points short, and gets a lot of free points with her serve. Her movement has decreased but she is still able when set up to generate great pace.
“If you look at someone like Michael Jordan in basketball, he was able to play at a very high level until nearly 40. Your best chance of winning is focusing on what you can still do very well. Venus has to use her best game plan and make sure she uses it correctly.”
Most of all, she relies upon an iron-clad self-belief. “For me it’s just about betting on myself every time,” Williams said after her straight sets semi-final defeat of Britain’s Johanna Konta. That was best exemplified by a 106mph second serve to save break point in the first set. Konta offered the perfect summary: “Her being able to do that is why she is a five-time champion here.”