By Bill Simons
MELBOURNE, Australia—The other night, everyone was recalling the late, great Vitas Gerulaitis‘ defiant boast after defeating his nemesis Jimmy Connors: “Nobody beats Vitas Gerulaitis 17 times in a row.” After all, Tomas Berdych, who’d lost to Rafa Nadal 17 straight times, finally triumphed over the Spaniard. “Nobody beats Tomas Berdych 18 times in a row” became the one-liner of the night.
Similarly, after Madison Keys beat Venus Williams, many quipped, “Nobody beats both Williams sisters in the same tourney.”
Well, it’s actually happened eight times. But why let a few facts get in the way of a good yarn.
After all, there was plenty of sympathy for 19-year-old Keys. It’s hard to dethrone any ruler. And Queen Serena Williams has ruled for good reason. Many a feared foe has simply left. (Where have you gone Justine Henin, Kim Clijsters and Li Na?) Others such as Simona Halep, Petra Kvitova, Aga Radwanska and Vika Azarenka rarely trouble her, and her prime “rival,” Maria Sharapova, hasn’t defeated her for 11 years and 15 meetings—Serena was injured when Maria last won.
Most of all, when Serena wants something, she usually gets it. After a five-year drought, she wants to win in Melbourne. And she wants to break out of a certain logjam: Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova and Serena have each won 18 singles Slams. Plus, she’s a caring little sister and the best revenge player in tennis history. Certainly she was eager to avenge Venus’ quarterfinal loss to Keys.
More than anything, Serena is a competitor with abundant pride. She knows what is hers—tennis preeminence—and doesn’t want to lose it anytime soon. She didn’t want to lose to Elina Svitolina and Garbine Muguruza when she started terribly and fell behind fast. And she didn’t want to lose her No. 1 ranking, which would could happen if she lost today. In other words, the Queen did not want to lose to the teen, who was hoping to become the first teen Grand Slam champ in 11 years.
After Serena drubbed Dominika Cibulkova in the quarterfinals, a writer told her, “You were doing some mystical stuff or magic [out there].” But Serena would have none of it: “I’m not involved in mystics or magic,” she insisted. And for a brief while against Keys, Serena’s brand of magic was nowhere to be found. After all, Williams, the Nike woman in neon green with pink accents, was often outhit by Keys, the Nike girl in pink with green accents.
The 19 year old unleashed stunning aces, an even dozen, and as “The Rocket,” Rod Laver, looked on, she ran Williams around Rod Laver Arena, blasting shots that had Serena—who has joked that she would like to be an NFL linebacker—reeling: on her heels, almost requiring a standing eight count.
But in tennis, neither punches to the gut nor creative impressions matter that much.
Melbourne’s teen darling—who captured hearts, and whose form shouted “I am the future!”—lost in straight sets today.
Yes, Serena was fighting a nasty bug in her chest and a feisty insect on court. Worse yet, Keys was hindered by her gimpy left abductor. It’s tough enough to beat one Williams, even with Lindsay Davenport as your coach. It’s tougher to beat two Williams sisters. But to beat Serena on one leg? Puh-leez.
Still, Madison tried. Why not? She has such easy, blast ‘n blur power. On her way to scoring 27 overall winners to just 19 for Serena, she came out swinging, and soon broke. Serena muttered to herself. Fans asked, “Is this kid for real?”
We said yes. Williams said: Enough. Her mindset: I’m Serena, everyone knows my shots have a weight and a power like no other—everyone knows I am one of the great fighters in all of sports. I will prevail.
At 1-1 in the critical first-set tiebreak, she stepped into a 112 mph Keys serve and blasted a winner. She was only up a modest mini-break. But that was enough, as she powered her way to a 7-5 tiebreak win to collect the first set.
Keys seemed overwhelmed.
Movement is important to every player. It’s key for Keys, and she couldn’t move well. She could be the future of tennis, but on this cool Melbourne afternoon, the future was not now. Her dismal loss of the first game of the second set opened the floodgates. She couldn’t keep up, handle Serena’s power, or even hold serve. In a flash she fell behind 1-5.
Then came the greatest 7/11 tennis game ever. On the brink of defeat, down 6-7, 1-5, Keys saved seven match points in an astonishing 11-minutes game. Yes, Madison flubbed the simplest of overheads (everyone in the arena saw that all-too-human error coming). But few imagined Madison would play such sublime ball. “She just went for broke,” said Williams. “She had nothing to lose times a million.”
Madison had a different view. For starters, she admitted, “You can almost get overwhelmed if you start focusing on Serena being on the other side of the court … Her ball’s not like anyone
else’s. It comes hard; it comes deep. You never have the feeling … [you] can control every ball.”
As for her fighting off all those match points, the kid said, “Anytime I had a second serve on her match point, it was really, ‘Just don’t double-fault … Try to keep fighting, try to stay in the match.’”
Yes, she held serve in the most stunning high-profile game of the tourney. “She’ll always have that,” noted one tweet. But soon she was out of the match, losing 7-6(5), 6-2. No. 1 Serena, who at 33 is the oldest-ever Aussie Open finalist, beat a 19 year old—and now she’ll be going for her 19th Slam against No. 2 Sharapova.
Serena generously hugged Madison at the net. A while later, she told IT that the almost-20 year old ranked No. 20 can “go really, really far … She can be the best in the world … She has potential to be No. 1 and win Grand Slams. It’s exciting … It’s great to see her do so well as an American … She just has this desire to be the best. That’s what it takes.”
Serena added that Keys fought to the very end, and that she not only hits “a very, very hard ball, but she also hits it very deep … I wasn’t really ready for that.”
Years ago, a teen from a Southern Illinois river town, Jimmy Connors, burst onto the tennis scene. Now we ask, is tennis ready for a kid from a Northern Illinois river town, Madison Keys, the Rock Island Rocket? According to Serena, Madison has arrived “just in time … It’s really good timing to get her in the mix.”
Madison herself dismissed any claims that she lost because of her injured thigh. Rather, she said she was pleased she’d held strong in the long baseline rallies and stayed calm throughout the tourney. Yes, she went dark on Twitter while in Melbourne, but she lit up the tennis universe.
“This week has definitely showed me … that I can play the top players and do well,” she said. “I can play the No. 1 player in a pretty close match … For me, that’s inspiration for every time I’m on a practice court, to keep working, to keep getting better.”
But tennis is a brutal taskmaster. A couple of other African-American teens who reached Slam semis (Sloane Stephens, 19, at the 2013 Aussie Open, and Alexandra Stephenson, 18, at the 1999 Wimbledon) soon struggled mightily.
Yet with her big coach, her big game, her big grin, her big heart, and her big Melbourne wins, we sense that the Rock Island Rocket has lifted off. Now, as the planetary Venus said, “The sky’s the limit.”
