A hours after Serena Williams walked out of the Rod Laver Arena, struck again in the late stages of a grand slam tournament, the Eurosport team gathered in front of the cameras to discuss the day’s game. There’s Barbara Schett, who was last active 15 years ago, who played against Williams three times, and via the video link, Williams’ former rival Justine Henin, who retired in Melbourne ten years ago. Henin is a year younger than Williams, now a mother of two, and when asked if she sees herself competing like Williams again, her answer was simple: “No way, no chance.”
While Williams competes against players like Naomi Osaka, it’s easy to forget that her real contemporaries are women like Schett and Henin. They are almost all long retired and live life to the fullest and enjoy the fruits of their labor in court in peace. Meanwhile, Williams has just competed in her 77th grand slam tournament, placing her second on the all-time list for her sister, Venus, who played in her 88th last week.
Such longevity is clearly no consolation to Williams. The last image of her during the tournament was that she suddenly left her press conference in tears. There have been discussions about her future about the exact meaning of her wave when she left court, but she may also just be frustrated about how things are still coming up. Since returning from pregnancy, she has constantly put herself in the position to win. When her performances in four Grand Slam finals were not enough, she left and worked harder.
In Australia, Williams has moved better over the past month than at any time in the past four years. While opponents like Simona Halep immediately pointed out the difference between then and now, she was also clearly happy and hopeful about her progress. When asked before her semi-final when she last moved as well as she did, she replied: ‘It was definitely a minute. It was a tall minute, ”she said. “I think 19 … 1926, the summer of 1926, I think was the last time I felt it.”
Yet none of it worked. Williams’ biggest problem is not her game, but how she lost the killer instinct that has defined her for so long. Consider some of her accomplishments at Rod Laver Arena alone: in 2003, she recovered from a 2-5 win over Kim Clijsters to win her Serena Slam. In the semi-finals of 2005, she saved three match points in the semi-final to beat Maria Sharapova. Two years later, she won the whole thing while she was 81st. In 2017, she was pregnant and could easily get tired, so she saved energy by hitting everyone in straight sets.
By 2015, Williams’ record in the Grand Slam final was 21-4. She was the big closer. Her ability to perform 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 during the 2015 U.S. Open, her biggest final record has been 2-6 and she has since lost in more semifinals (4) 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 wasted opportunity. Winning is so difficult under these circumstances.
Meanwhile, Osaka represents some of the freedom and courage she has lost. First, she refused to make a single unforced error in the last 22 points of her return to Garbiñe Muguruza in a fourth round with a 3-5 15-40 deficit. against Williams by winning the last eight points and the game. Now she is chasing a 4-0 record in the Grand Slam finals.
It remains to be seen whether Williams will be able to play freely enough to even compete for her 24th Grand Slam title. Whether she does, instead of a failure, this period is rather a context for what it really needed to achieve everything she has.