FLUSHING MEADOWS, N.Y. — Last year, Serena Williams suffered the most storied foot fault call in tennis history, when her Nike did (or, she would claim, did not) cross the line. Then, she told the USA Today, the day of her July accident in Munich, when she suffered lacerations on both her feet, she was planning to wear high boots to the Munich restaurant that night. Instead, she wore sandals. Rarely in tennis has a fashion decision been more consequential.
She told reporter Christine Brennan, “We were walking out of the restaurant and all of a sudden, I felt pain. The pain felt like kind of a stubbed foot. Then in 20 seconds, or a minute, I started walking again. And it hurt some more. So we looked down there was glass all over the floor. I was standing, recovering, thinking I got a little cut and telling my nephew, who was with us, to be careful. Then my practice partner put a cell phone down to the floor so we could see, and there was a huge puddle of blood. I said, “OMG, I don’t think this is good…I’m trying to figure it all out, but what happened was a one-in-trillion chance and, unfortunately, I was the one.” She played a record-breaking exo in Belgium against Kim Clijsters and followed that up by hosting, in high heels no less, a party to celebrate her new L.A. home. Serena said, “This whole experience will make me stronger. I plan to come back better than ever.
IF YOU’RE GOING TO VEGAS, TAKE ANDRE’S NUMBER: Jim Courier said that if he ever got “into trouble in Vegas, I’m going to call Andre [Agassi], he’ll know the people to help me out.”
TOUGH QUESTION: It’s been said that, along with, or just after Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova is the toughest mentally on the women’s tour. So we asked the Russian when she’s shown the most mental toughness. She replied, “Coming back [from my shoulder injury] was one of the toughest things…Because I had so many expectations and so many others had expectations of me…and I was never ready. We’d set a date of when I could start hitting the ball and a few serves. I’d hit forehands and backhands and I was fine. I tried to hit a serve, and I couldn’t. I was still in a lot of pain. That was even after the rehab and surgery. Coming back from that and setting another timetable and doing it over and over again until I slowly found myself working myself up to hitting 10 to 15 serves, 20 serves, and being able to do that without pain and really being patient, and going back to Phoenix over and over again for months on end, that took a lot. I could easily, at this stage in my career, just say, ‘I’ve won Grand Slams. I’ve been there and done that.’ But I never felt like I had enough. I always felt like I could be a better player. Even if at that point, I couldn’t go out and hit a serve…But starting from when I was young, winning Wimbledon at 17, the reason I’m looking back and being proud is because I was so fearless throughout the whole tournament. I was happy to be in the semifinals, I was down and out against [Lindsay] Davenport. I was already booking my plane ticket when the rain delay hit. And then pulling that out, going into the final, against someone that has so much experience [Serena] and was so much physically stronger than I was at that point, so much more experienced, [yet I] went out there and really just didn’t really care about the situation; I just played tennis.”
A NICKNAME TO REMEMBER: “Dreddy,” for dreadlocked Jamaican Dustin Brown.
ANNA TRUMPS MARIA: Asked if, during her juniors days, she looked up to her fourth-round opponent Maria Sharapova, Caroline Wozniacki confided that she was actually more of an Anna Kournikova girl. “I wanted to be like her —definitely. I thought she was very pretty. She was handling everything really nicely. You saw her everywhere.”
VIVE LA DIFFERENCE: Gael Monfils — a 7-6(4), 6-7(4), 6-2, 6-4 winner over Janko Tipsarevic in the third round — weighed in on the difference between himself and fellow Frenchman and fourth-round opponent Richard Gasquet: “I think Richard is more talented than me in a couple ways, like he can adapt more about the conditions. Then I think I’m stronger than him physically, and maybe a bit mentally, also. Sometimes he is too defensive, like me.”
CURIOUS QUESTION:
REPORTER: “Who do you think will win this tournament? Yourself or somebody else?”
MARIA SHARAPOVA: “That’s a funny question. Going into a tournament, if you think that anyone else is going to win but you, you’ve got some serious problems.”
HEADLINES
THE KIM-BACK KID
THE NUMBERS
3: Games lost by Caroline Wozniacki at the U.S. Open — the fewest games conceded by ANY player through three complete matches at the U.S. Open dating back to the beginning of the expanded 128-payer draw in 1981, and the fewest at any Grand Slam since Roland Garros in ’94, when Mary Pierce lost just two.
QUOTEBOOK
“When you’re, like, losing that bad, it’s just in your head, like, ‘Just please let me win one game.'” — Beatrice Capra, who was shut out 6-0, 6-0 by Maria Sharapova in the third at the USO. (Asked if she’d ever been double bagled before, the American admitted, “Yeah, like six months ago, actually.”)
