U.S. Open champion Serena Williams stays poised even as bad calls come into play Against Victoria Azarenka, some replays and - gulp - a foot fault go against Serena, who maintains her cool and wins another Slam.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2013
By Filip Bondy
The icy glare of Serena Williams can be intimidating and sometimes even take her off her game. But Sunday in her U.S. Open win, she is the picture of calm.
They threw the kitchen sink at Serena Williams in the 10th game of this U.S. Open final on Sunday, when she was serving at 4-5, when you half expected her to kick down the umpire’s chair at Ashe Stadium or force-feed the linesman a tennis ball. A woman, especially this woman, can only take so much.
1 First, at 40-30, Victoria Azarenka challenged Serena’s second-serve let. She was proved wrong on the scoreboard replay, but then Serena double-faulted due to the delay. On the next point, Williams whacked a 121 mph ace, only to be called for, gulp... a foot fault. When it seemed she finally had won the game on Azarenka’s forehand error, Azarenka challenged the out call. The replay proved her correct, this time by millimeters. On top of all that, the wind was gusting from behind Williams, causing her tosses to drift too far in front.
Everything that could go wrong and crazy, went awry and loopy. Yet whatever fury percolated inside, Serena kept her cool.
With remarkable restraint, she held serve on a backhand volley winner and an ace, demonstrating the sort of behavioral restraint that at times has eluded her in the past. And right then, with that sort of discipline, you knew she would win this final somehow, no matter how long it took.
Williams jumps for joy after her three-set win over Victoria Azarenka.
It took a very long time, 2 hours and 45 minutes, and Azarenka clearly wanted it very badly. This would become a classic yo-yo of a match between No. 1 and No. 2, before Williams finally won her fifth Open, 7-5, 6-7 (6), 6-1, and started dancing around like a 6-year-old ballerina.
“I don’t know what makes me special,” Serena would say later. “I consider myself just like everyone else. I just play.”
2 She played and played on Sunday. She was remarkable and resilient. “She calmed herself, started over when she needed,” said her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou. In the fifth game of the final set, when she should have been flagging badly, she struck three aces, two at 124 and 126 mph. All those extra doubles matches with Venus had not sapped a bit of strength or nerve.
“I think it was raising, you know, from the first point the tension, the battle, the determination, kind of like boiling the water or something,” Azarenka said. “It was a great match. I lost to a great champion, but I’m still gonna have my head up.”
Williams (r.) and Azarenka pose with their respective trophies.
With Williams now, it is never anymore a comparison with today’s players, not even Azarenka, as it is with the greatest of all time. This is an impossible debate to wage if you base it on style, because the technology and the body types have changed too much. You watch the old films of Tracy Austin versus Martina Navratilova, and it is a different, pit-a-pat kind of sport. Nobody then hit the ball with today’s thunder, nobody was going for the lines.
So the only way to do this, unfortunately, is with the simplest statistic of all: career majors, which is a measurement against contemporary peers to determine a measurement against the past. Williams now has 17 Grand Slam championships, same as Roger Federer, sixth-best ever among the women, just one title behind Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova. There is little doubt, barring injury, she will
3 surpass both of them, plus Helen Wills Moody at 19. That might happen as soon as next year.
“I don’t think about it,” said Williams, 31. “I feel great. I have never felt better. I feel really fit. I can play a tournament like this, singles, doubles, with tough, tough schedules. I haven’t felt like this in a number of years. I’m excited about the possibilities.”
If and when she surpasses Evert, there will be considerable irony in the accomplishment, because Evert complained often earlier on that Williams was not dedicated enough to her craft and to her sport. The great champion wanted Williams to play more tournaments and to stop fiddling around in outside businesses.
Williams instead has done it her way, dabbling in fashion and film, extending her career along the way. She is no dilettante, though. There is no way a dabbler can come up with this kind of season. Two slams in 2013, with a 67-4 record.
Remarkable stuff. Nearly as remarkable as how she held both her temper and her tongue on Sunday at the U.S. Open, when all around the world was conspiring against her.
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