LONDON — Her slick black hair neatly brushed back behind a narrow white headband, toting her massive Wilson bag, her game face firmly etched in place, Serena Williams walked out on court, her head down, gazing at the most fabled surface in tennis. The still-sleepy Centre Court crowd greeted tennis' “dahlin' diva” with proper applause. At first glance, this seemed like any other return of a defending Wimbledon woman's Champion.
It wasn't.
It wasn't just that, up in the Friends Box, Serena's papa, Richard Williams, seemed particularly grim. It wasn't that, in the first game of the match against France's Aravane Rezai, a seemingly random alarm interrupted the monastic quietude of the cathedral they call Centre Court. And it wasn't just that Serena was called for multiple foot faults and was broken in the opening game of the match.
“These are the things that make life interesting,” explained Nick Bollettieri. “These are the things that only a few can do. What is it inside Serena? It's got to be something that says 'You will do it again, you will do it again.' You don't teach that. Serena's different from Monica Seles. Monica was too nice. Serena challenges you. Her physical size and the way she stands inside the baseline on her return of serve. And, ultimately she just can't walk away from tennis. With her there's no such word as 'can't.'”
So when the chair umpire uttered the words that all of tennis had yearned to hear for a year — “Miss Serena Williams to serve” — there was almost a sense of relief.
After all, with Serena on the shelf due to injuries — severe and curious — the women's game was adrift. Sure, Kim Clijsters won two Slams, but her impact was muted by injuries, a modest schedule, an understandable delight with parenting and admissions that she might soon be walking away for the game. No other player (neither an “ova” from Russia or an under-20 from Slovakia) had come close to filling the vast Serena-void. The game was ready for her return. True, tennis has relished a bundle of feel-good comebacks: Borg, McEnroe, Connors, Agassi, Austin, Capriati and Davenport all rebounded with varying heroism. “But what Serena went through,” noted Bollettieri, “could have ended her life.” Only one other elite player had ever come back from the brink of death — Seles. Alas, the Serbian-
American's stabbing in '93 robbed tennis of one its greatest rivalries — Seles vs. Steffi Graf. And, after more than two years away from the court, Seles was never quite the same ferocious player as before. “But Bollettieri was quick to note, “This girl [Serena] is very different.”
But from Court 2, down St. Mary's Walk and out to Henman Hill, the questions were the same. First and foremost, would Serena's return somehow threaten her health or even her life? Serena's mother, Oracene Price, was unhappy that she was even playing. Williams said, “I'm on strike two, so I can't have any more strikes.” But after her up-and-down 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 win over Rezai, it was tears that struck.
Serena was surprised. Still gushing, she told the BBC, “I never cry for anything for joy.” She added, “I didn't expect to have any emotions…[But] I just thought about all the things that were happening…[So] making it [here] and winning was pretty cool…I love playing tennis. I love being a part of the competition…I've never taken it for granted because I fight and won everything. Each and every point, each and every moment…I relish…[But] it definitely hit me at the end of the match. I'm not a crier, so I don't know…It definitely was so emotional for me because…I've been through a lot of things that aren't normal, things you guys don't even know about. So it's just been a long, arduous road. To stand up still is pretty awesome.”
So what has Serena gained from her trauma? “I just learned that you can never take any moment for granted,” she explained. “I was really trying to draw spiritually on my god, Jehovah, who I've really been trying to get a closer relationship to…I've been doing so much just to try to appreciate every moment. When things happen, you appreciate the people that are around you or people that may not be around you…It's eye-opening…It makes you really tough.”
Asked how her close-to-death scare compared with some of the other definitive experiences in her life — her foundation work in Kenya, the daunting moment of seeing a slave port in Ghana, etc. — she responded, “This one stands out because it's my own struggle and my own battle…This was just something that I have to overcome. And I'm still overcoming every day. This isn't the end of the road; it's just the beginning.”
THE BUZZ: WIMBLEDON DAY 2
OBVIOUSLY: These days, the struggling Melanie Oudin's confidence is as diminutive as her stature. She again lost a first-round match, losing to former French champ Ana Ivanovic, who has also struggled with confidence.
CURIOUS QUESTIONS: A writer from a British tabloid asked Serera: “Do you hold the restaurant where the incident took place culpable?…You come from a litigious culture. You've lost $6.5 million potentially that you could have earned as the result of the negligence. I mean, what was the restaurant called?”…In a more sensible vein, Williams was also asked, “After what you faced off the court, is there anything on the court that can faze you?”…Just after beating Nicolas Mahut, John Isner was asked, ‘What are the odds of you that you will play him again in the first round next year?”
RICHARD WILLIAMS ON SERENA WILLIAMS: IT caught up with Richard Williams just after Serena's first-round victory. Said Williams, “This time it's been scary, frightening. I've been nervous, not able to sleep, trying to talk to different doctors to get a feel of what I could face. It was scary. Serena was on the verge of dying. That was frightening. It brought a fear deep in my heart. But my mama taught me if there is a situation you can't do anything about, pray and leave it alone. I prayed, but I couldn't leave it alone so I got in a car and drove to California. She really didn't seem to be upset. She pretended to be happy. So when we went out to California my wife and I started painting a fence. Then Serena started painting. That's when she started recovering. Serena has been out for a year and today I thought she played good.” On the women's game, Richard said the tour “has looked un-colorful. It hasn't looked colorful at all. The crowd wasn't there. Hopefully, Venus and Serena will bring it back. Serena will always be fighting, but I think she should have waited for six weeks or two months more before she came back.”
ISNER VS. MAHUT II — THE SEQUEL: It was groundhog day all over again at SW19. (Haven't we seen this before — the massive American Isner, towering and imposing, versus Mahut, with the perpetually spiked and disheveled hair?) This time it took Isner two less days and 9:05 less time to defeat his foe 7-6(4), 6-2, 7-6(6).
A GOOD DAY FOR AUSSIES: Down Under vet Lleyton Hewitt took out Kei Nishikori, and rising Aussie Bernard Tomic beat Russian Nikolay Davydenko.
GO FIGURE: On a day in which there was much focus on the greatest marathon men in history — Isner and Mahut — Daniela Hantuchova beat Vitalia Diatchenko 4-6, 7-6(5), 6-3 in 3:27 — the second longest woman's match in Wimbledon history.
NOW WE KNOW WHAT WE WERE MISSING: Serena's fierce and mighty (“I will not lose”) mindset came back with a vengeance on a Tuesday afternoon. In the women's game only Maria Sharapova’s will and toughness can approach Serena's.
THEY'RE GOOD MEMORIES FOR US: When asked about his match last year with Mahut, Isner told BBC, “I don't think they’re good memories. They are long memories.”
COULD BE: Roger Federer's second favorite court (after Wimbledon's Centre Court) is the court in Pete Sampras' L.A. backyard.
BLAKE THINKING OF RETIREMENT?: When asked whether he was thinking of hanging up his Nikes, James Blake (who fell to Marcos Baghdatis in five sets 6-4, 6-2, 6-7(5), 4-6, 6-4) said, “Haven't crossed my mind yet. I hadn't thought about it. That's going to be a decision that's going to take longer than one match and I wouldn't want to make it within an hour, two hours, or even a day of a loss… There's probably been…200 [matches I've lost] and about 198 of them I probably thought I should retire right after those. I'd come back the next day ready to play and ready to get better. I'm thinking this one will be the same.”
WHAT A SURPRISE: Federer offered a sweet appreciation about his favorite place, saying, “Just practicing at Wimbledon, being a member, putting all the whites on with the ivy on the walls, the purple and green, it's something that really touches me. It's such a sacred place in tennis.”
ANNA A WINNER ON 'LOSER': Anna Kournikova will take over for Jillian Michaels next season as the head trainer on NBC's “The Biggest Loser.” “She grew up with very little in Moscow, pounding tennis balls every day when she was five,” said executive producer Todd Lubin. “That's the drive she's bringing to the show.”
BRUCE ALMIGHTY: Bruce Jenkins attempted to explain the rows of empty seats on the brand-new Court 3 for the Isner-Mahut ematch, saying, “For one thing, history doesn't repeat itself. Expecting a repeat of last year's match is like waiting for the 'old' Tiger Woods to show up. Ain't never gonna happen…The plain fact is that this is a terrible matchup from the standpoint of pure tennis. It's basically two guys with big serves, two guys who don't return so well, and a bunch of short, uninspiring points.”
GRUNT WORK: Digital artist Alexander Purcell paid homage to the sport's top women (and their grunting) at www.nowness.com/day/2011/6/20, a must-see, Pong-inspired creation that features the shrieks of Sharapova and Yung-Jan Chan.
CLAY TEACHES YOU A LOT: Bob Bryan weighed in on the Americans' lack of success at Roland Garros, saying, “I sometimes think it's a little bit mental. A few guys come over later in the European season. They don't really get down and dirty and get there for Monte Carlo and Barcelona. They miss a few. If you don't fare well in those lead-ups, you only have one or two matches coming into the French. It's just a mentality. Agassi did it, Sampras did it. After Miami, they just shut it down for about a month. We like to go to Houston, play there, and then come right over and get battle tested. There hasn't been an American who's played a Nadal clay-court schedule. Name one American in the last 10 years who's come over and played Monte Carlo, Barcelona, and then gone through and given it a real, 100 percent effort on trying to improve on the clay. It's tough to stay over for the full three months, but clay teaches you a lot.”
QUOTEBOOK
“It's not our birthright as Americans that we are going to have great players.” — Brad Gilbert
