ONE just hours after Serena Williams left Rod Laver Arena, again defeated in the final stages of a Grand Slam tournament, the Eurosport team met in front of the cameras to discuss the game of the day. There was Barbara Schett, last active 15 years ago, who played against Williams three times, and via video link, Williams’ former rival Justine Henin, who retired in Melbourne 10 years ago. Henin is a year younger than Williams, now a mother of two, and when she was asked if she saw herself competing like Williams again, her answer was simple: “No chance, no chance”.
While Williams competes against players like Naomi Osaka, it’s easy to forget that his real contemporaries are women like Schett and Henin. Almost everyone has been retired for a long time, living a full life, enjoying the fruits of their work in court in peace. Meanwhile, Williams has just competed in his 77th Grand Slam tournament, which puts her in second place on the all-time list for her sister, Venus, who competed in her 88th tournament last week.
This longevity is clearly not a consolation for Williams. The last image of her in the tournament was of her abruptly leaving the press conference in tears. There are already discussions about her future, about the precise meaning of her nod when she leaves the court, but she can also be frustrated with the way things continue to happen. Since returning from pregnancy, she has constantly put herself in a position to win. When her performances in four Grand Slam finals were not enough, she left and worked harder.
During the past month, in Australia, Williams has moved better than at any time in the past four years. Although opponents like Simona Halep immediately pointed out the difference between before and now, she was also clearly happy and hopeful about her progress. Asked before her semifinal when was the last time she moved as well as she is, she replied: “It’s definitely been a minute. It has been a long minute, ”she said. “I think 19 … 1926, the summer of 1926, I think that was the last time I felt that.”
However, nothing worked. Williams’ biggest problem is not her game, but how she lost the killer instinct that defined her for so long. Consider some of her achievements only at Rod Laver Arena: in 2003, she recovered from a 2-5 defeat against Kim Clijsters to win her Serena Slam. In the 2005 semifinal, she saved three match points in the semifinal to beat Maria Sharapova. Two years later, she won it all while ranking 81st. In 2017 she was pregnant and easily tired, so she conserved energy by winning everyone on straight sets.
In 2015, Williams’ record in the Grand Slam finals was 21-4. She was too close. His ability to stand out in the most difficult moments was so common that it was easy for people to forget how difficult it is to win just one title. Now we know. Since Williams fell to Roberta Vinci at the US Open 2015 while chasing the grand slam, her main final record is 2 to 6, and she has lost in more semifinals (4) since then than in the rest of her career.
She has reached the part of her career where experience can be detrimental. She knows too much: she understands exactly what it means to win a Grand Slam title, that it will all be over soon and that every failure is a missed opportunity. Winning is so difficult under these circumstances.
Meanwhile, Osaka represents some of the freedom and strength she has lost. First, she refused to make a single unforced mistake in the final 22 points of her fourth round recovery for Garbiñe Muguruza from a 3-5 15-40 disadvantage, so she responded to the serve by losing with three double fouls to 6-3 4-4 against Williams, winning the final eight points and the match. Now she is after a 4-0 record in the Grand Slam finals.
It remains to be seen whether Williams will be able to play freely enough even to compete for his 24th Grand Slam title. Whether she does it or not, rather than a failure, this period is rather a context for what it really took to achieve everything she has.