The world of constantly changing hats that Serena Williams inhabits, in which
she is forever switching between the demands of top-flight tennis, fashion
design, acting, philanthropic deeds and now writing an inspirational memoir
that will double as her life history, can mean that a mission statement laid
down several months earlier becomes a curious thing to revisit.
Many is the time Serena has stated her intentions of achieving something one
week and then apparently done completely the opposite. Yet she listened with
interest as her words of early January this year were read back to her. “My
aim is to take care of A and make sure that A is happy. If that is the case
then trust me; the tournament titles will come flowing in like all the water
crashing over Niagara Falls.”
On hearing that statement, a giggle that gathered momentum into a full-blown
laugh ensued; they often do when Serena tries to be serious. Then, regaining
her composure, she reflected for a second or two before congratulating
herself on her metaphorical choice. “Did I say that?” she asked. “Yeah, I
like those words. They pretty much fit the way I felt then and the way I
still feel now. It seems to be working.”
If four singles titles and another couple of doubles constitute a torrent,
then Serena has been as good as her word. And remember that the haul
includes her first US Open triumph in six years, which took her total of
Grand Slam singles titles to nine. In addition, she teamed up with big
sister Venus to capture a second Wimbledon doubles crown and an Olympic gold
medal.
After a career that stretches back 10 years, few now expect Serena to be one
of the workaholics of women’s tennis. Yet she tops the 2008 money list by
nearly a million dollars, reclaimed the world No 1 ranking (albeit briefly)
that she held five years previously and suffered fewer defeats than any
leading player, male or female. She has also comfortably qualified for the
Sony Eric-sson WTA Tour Championships, to be staged in Qatar, while playing
a fraction of the matches of those ranked above her.
“Not a bad year then, I’ll take that, but it’s not over yet,” she insisted,
having just returned from a New York bookstore, where she had stocked up on
reading matter to amuse herself during the nine-hour flight to Doha. The
Middle East is where she will attempt to enhance her fortune at the $4.55m
event that ends the women’s tennis calendar and which she last won in 2001.
“In some respects I am going into the unknown because I don’t even know
where Qatar is on the map. Somebody told me it’s Kuwait. However, I am fit
and ready and enthusiastic and fully aware of what awaits me out there on
the tennis court. Right now I am just so eager to compete. The will to play
is just so strong at the moment and that excites me.”
Such news might come as something of a surprise to the tournament director of
the Kremlin Cup in Moscow, to whom Serena sent her apologies a month ago,
stating that she was suffering from an injured ankle. Widely published
photographs of her surfing in Hawaii barely a week later alongside her
boyfriend and rapper, Common, can only have deepened Sergey Leonyuk’s dismay.
Serena has played just the one match since winning the US Open almost two
months ago and that was a disappointing display against China’s Na Li in
Stuttgart, where she let a 6-0 domination in the opening set crumble into a
lame defeat. And there is a reason for the WTA Tour hierarchy to be more
than a little anxious until they actually see Serena walking on to the court
at the revamped Khalifa International stadium. Three times previously she
has qualified for this event and then sent her apologies; a back injury and
a damaged left foot forced her out of a November date at Madison Square
Garden, New York, in 1999 and 2000, while her troublesome left knee provoked
the nonappearance at the 2003 event, at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles.
Then, last year in Madrid, she had to retire after just a set of her opening
match against Anna Chakvetadze because of more knee problems, not that she
has time for any regrets over that withdrawal. “I don’t recall that as a
painful experience,” she said. “I’d never been to Madrid before so I stayed
around in the city for a while and had so much fun. I wouldn’t have changed
it for anything but don’t worry, I’m healthy this time. In fact, except for
a few little problems here and there, I believe I have been pretty much
match-fit and focused on my tennis since the beginning of last year when I
won the Australian Open. I have been putting in the hard work ever since but
it has only been in the last six months that I have seen the results. The
hunger and desire to do well has always been there but it is just
manifesting itself now.
“This year I really thought I was going to win the French Open again but it
didn’t work out that way. Then I should have won the Wimbledon final against
Venus. I came apart mentally. I lost my cool. People say it was a good final
between the two of us but I don’t remember it in that way. What sticks in my
mind was the wind blowing around Centre Court, which made things so
difficult. Then, when we went out together to play the doubles final a
couple of hours later, there was not a breath of breeze, which made me even
more angry.”
Curiously, she maintains that the Olympic gold medal for the doubles in
Beijing prompted more delight than the US Open success, during which she
celebrated a succession of victories over Doha rivals Venus, Dinara Safina
and the current world No 1, Jelena Jankovic, by dancing a jig of delight on
the court.
“Yes, I felt good [at Flushing Meadows] but the Olympics were the best thing
that happened to me this year,” she said. “I’m the kind of person who
believes I will win US Open titles and, growing up, I always aspired to win
Grand Slam titles but it was never my goal to win a gold medal. They are
supposed to be for people like Michael Phelps, who is somebody I think about
in the way a fan does. He did such an amazing job and I would love to meet
all the swimmers. They just have the best bodies.”
If travel guides are not on her current reading list then neither are the sort
of self-help books such as Who Moved My Cheese? by Dr Spencer Johnson, which
focuses on the ability to deal with change and which proved so relevant to
her life nearly two years ago. Serena is currently reading The Battle Of
Labyrinth, a fantasy work of fiction by Rick Riordan that is recommended for
children aged 10 and older.
That choice may be something to do with the fact that she has just begun work
on her own life story. Bidding reputedly reached $1.3m for the rights to
what Serena is already calling her “inspirational memoirs”. It is due in the
bookstores for the preChristmas sales boom next year. She is working in
collaboration with Daniel Paisner, who co-wrote the 9/11 recollection Last
Man Down with the New York fire department battalion commander Richard
Picci-otto. The working title is the far from imaginative Queen Of The Court
but she was quick to point out: “It would be wrong to call it my
autobiography because I am far too young for that and there are so many more
things to happen in my life.
“Plus, it’s not about the way I play and there are so many more things I’m
going to do both on the court and off it. I prefer to think of it as my own
Who Moved My Cheese? and I want it to motivate other people when they read
about the struggles and the difficulties I have been through with all the
negativity that was levelled at me. It would be good if I could help people
who have a lot of challenges and show them how they might overcome those
barriers.”
No less an observer than Billie Jean King remains insistent that Serena could
definitely have become the greatest woman to have played tennis if she had
been totally focused on the task in hand.
Her upbringing decreed that there would always be other aims and interests in
the Williams sisters’ lives. For Serena the most discernible is a desire to
make a meaningful contribution to her roots and, immediately once play is
over in Doha, she will fly first to South Africa and then Kenya to make
gifts of numerous computers to underprivileged schools.
Then she will journey to Senegal to survey land where she intends to build a
school of her own. “For years I wanted to do a charity and something I knew
would be beneficial for others,” she said. “I kept asking, ‘Should I do
something for Africa or should it be for women?’ In 2006 I went to Africa
and saw things over there that just weren’t fair. Kids couldn’t afford to go
to school because their parents couldn’t afford to pay the equivalent of a
dollar a week and that left me mortified. I kept thinking where I would have
been without my own education. I realised I had finally found my calling and
my love because Africa is my roots, it’s where I come from. So I’ve formed a
foundation that will build that school in Senegal to allow those kids to be
educated for free. What is most important to me is that they will have a
chance to be the best they can be and more.”
The past year has been a strange one for women’s tennis. Justine Henin took
everybody by surprise when she retired in May, announcing that she wanted to
concetrate on other avenues of her life. Too much play and a subsequent
shoulder injury also caused Maria Sharapova to be sidelined since early
August. So Serena Williams seems once again to have been proved right in
playing an abbreviated schedule and taking time out for other ventures.
“I’ve had a lot of ups and downs; more downs than I care to know,” she said.
“But there were ups, too, and I had fun. I’ve always kind of played my own
schedule and done my own thing. I’ve lived my life, met lots of new people,
done things that matter. I don’t regret anything because I feel like I was
able to do everything I wanted to and still have my career.”
After a fashion
- Serena Williams raised eyebrows at this year’s Wimbledon when she warmed up
for her first-round match wearing this white mackintosh that left her, in
the words of one tennis writer, ‘looking very much like a classic movie
private detective with the belt pulled closed in front’. She took it off
once the match started and later told journalists: ‘It is definitely not
athletic attire. But it is ladylike and I am very ladylike. It goes
perfectly with my personality and everything else. I absolutely love
trenchcoats. I mean, I love coats, and I don’t know why because I live in
Florida, so it doesn’t really add up.’ Williams has her own line of designer
clothing, Aneres - her first name spelled backwards.
- Three decades before Williams, a young Chris Evert was turning heads on
Centre Court. ‘I have never seen Chris look dishevelled or even pleasantly
rumpled,’ said one contemporary. The American’s gold loop earrings and
well-cut frocks, not to mention the odd bit of frilly underwear, made her a
darling of both sexes
- She may never have won a WTA championship tournament but this proved no
obstacle to Anna Kournikova making a career out of the game. She was first
'spotted', making her debut at the US Open, aged 15. Within five years, she
had become one of the most searched names on Google, appeared as the face of
Berlei's shock absorber sports bras and featured in Sports Illustrated’s
swimsuit issues in 2004 and 2005. Following in her wake was another Russian
who had talent as well as looks. Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon in 2004, at
the age of 18. Since then, modelling deals and sponsors have left her the
best paid sportswoman in the world. In 2007, she turned up to play in the US
Open wearing a cocktail dress encrusted with 600 crystals: ‘It's always
important to feel comfortable in what you're wearing when you're playing.’
100
Thousands of dollars that players in Doha have already won just by qualifying.
Each group stage win is also worth that sum, while a semi-final win will
secure a further $315,000 and victory in the final another $625,000
