LONDON — When chaos descends, when the middle no longer holds, when rule and order is batterred and butchered by anarchy and turmoil, who you gonna call?
Serena Williams.
That’s right.
Sure, she’s a bit of a diva. Few would deny she’s drama queen. Still no other player in this or any other era has so consistently restored order when disarray was the order of the day. When upset fans showered her with hoots and hollers in Indian Wells in 20002, she just won the match and walked away.
After she was robbed of a call against Jennifer Capriati at a chaotic U.S. Open match in 2004, she not only got an apology from the USTA, tennis sprinted to implement Hawk-Eye officiating, which has upgraded the officiating of the sport.
When leading lights lambasted Serena in ’06 for ignoring her place in history, for her indiffernce and having far more passion for her pet projects than for tennis, Serena responded by winning the Aussie and U.S. Opens.
When she verbally accousted a U.S. Open linesperson, she seemed to reply to her critics by collecting the next Slam, the Aussie Open. Now, Wimbledon seemed to continue (and deepen) the chaos. Roger Federer was upset, Andy Roddick lost to Yen-Hsun Lu, the fearless son of a Taiwanese chicken farmer, it took John Isner 138 games to beat Nicolas Mahut and Wimbledon’s doubles results had a (“what’s going on”) Alice In Wonderland sensibility.
All the while, two rather unknown Chinese players had reached the Aussie Open finals, Francesca Schiavone and Sam Stosur played for the French title and No. 82 Tsvetana Pironkova (who crushed Venus) and No. 60 Petra Kvitova (who crushed No. 3 Caroline Wozniacki) sashayed into the Wimbledon semis.
Meanwhile, two recent No. 1s – Ana Ivanovic and Dinara Safina — were free-falling outside the top 20.
Go figure.
Who you gonna call?
Serena Williams. That’s right, tennis looked to their No. 1 player in the world, who had won three of the last four Slams, to straighten up the messy realty.
Serena didn’t hesitate.
Going into the final in hopes of claiming her fourth Wimbledon and the ninth Venus Rosewater plate for her clan, she faced a slightly overachieving Vera Zvonareva.
On fire throughout, Serena hadn’t dropped a set in six matches. Her serve sizzled as she blasted 80 aces and faced a measly four break points in her not exactly riveting matches.
In her three previous Wimbledon wins Serena had faced a “Vee” – Venus. But Vera Zvonareva was a “V” of a lesser order. Venus had won seven Slams. Zvonereva – No. 21 in the world and the second lowest ranked player to ever appear in a Wimbledon final would be playing her first Slam final in the 30 majors she had played.
Still the third Russian to reach a Wimbledon final was on quite the run with wins over three dangerous seeds – No. 15 Yanina Wickmayer and two former No. 1s — Jelena Jankovic and Kim Clijsters. In the semis, Zvonereva came from behind to down Venus’ conqueror, Pironkova. But, of course, prior to the final, Zvonereva had won just once in six matches against Serena.
No wonder pundits wanted to talk more about tangential issues rather than the final itself. So there discussions of Zvonereva’s meltdowns (They’re frequent and inventive). Her intelligence. (How many players are going for their masters?) And her thoughts about the role of emotion. (She’s for it). Then many an expert said Serena’s serve was the best of all-time. Maybe Steffi Graf had the best forehand of all time and Evert had pretty decent backhands. But Mary Joe Fernandez was emphatic that Serena’s serve was “no question the best ever. The fact she can win 94-95 percent of the points when she gets her first serve in is impressive. And it’s not just the power. It’s the placement. It’s the disguise, the variety. She’s got it all. The two most important shots in tennis are the serve and the return. Monica Seles had the best return. But Serena’s shot happens to be the most important one. Having that kind of serve, so consistently, technically flawless – you are going to win a lot. There you have it. She can wrack it up.
And wrack it up she did. After all, Williams sisters like the Wimbledon final. They’ve been in them for ten of the last eleven years and Serena does just fine in Slam finals. She had won 12 of the 15 she has reached.
From the outset Williams provided little air for Zvonereva to breathe. She won the first game at love. Zvonereva tried to hold her own for a while. But it was clear the modest Russian who once was No. 5, but only twice has beaten a reigning No. 1 player, could not lay a glove on a dominating performer at her peak and with few, if any weaknesses.
Start fast, run her, jam her, take your shot at opportune moments – nice chatter. Serena just jabbed for a while. She would double fault, then respond with an unsparing, chalk flying ace that astounded the English throng and the Russian player alike.
Zvonereva admitted it was almost impossible to attack Serena’s missiles. “She can use different serves. She can hit flat and what is very good on the grass, a slice serve wide where it’s very difficult to return. You can cover one side, but then she can go flat very hard the other side. So she always changes it. And the second serve she can put so much rotation in, so it’s very difficult to attack.”
No kidding.
On the offensive from the beginning, Serena waited until what Bill Tilden curiously called the critical seventh game of the first set to make her mark. Taking advantage of a Zvonereva double fault, Williams stroked two brilliant shots – an inpired lob amidst a quick step scramble and a classic down the line, whip and zip forehand winner to take a 5-3 lead. The tennis universe prayed for a real match, with real tennis. But Serena promptly broke again and again and marched to workmanlike 1:07 6-3, 6-2 day at the office. Immediately, there was talk of Serena’s history – past and future. Her father said that her meltdown at the U.S. Open, just ten months ago was good for her Serena. That it taught her not to get so riled up about anything.
But clearly Serena was thrilled with passing Billie Jean King on the all-time Grand Slam list with 13 wins. And when she came into the press room she immediately said that her win meant “a lot because, uhm, it is 13. So it’s kind of cool because I kind of was able to pass Billie. That’s always nice.”
But, while Serena was consistent throughout Wimbledon, her off-court views at times vary.
“I know Martina and I guess five other people are ahead of me. I didn’t even know I was six on the list or seven or whatnot. I’m telling you, I don’t think about that kind of stuff. My thing is I love my dogs; I love my family; I love going to the movies; I love reading; I love going shopping. Like it’s not on my list to be…this. At the end of the day, I would love to open more schools in Africa or in the U.S., and I would love to help people. I would like to be remembered, Okay, yeah, she was a tennis player…she won X amount of Grand Slams…but, wow, she really did a lot to inspire other people and help other people.”
On this day Serena Williams helped all of tennis to set its table again, to have order in the court. It was about time.
