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Serena Williams came into the Australian Open with some question marks, but does anyone really think she’s going to lose?
It’s a case of until she gets beaten, then I’ll believe it.
Right now, Williams is still clearly the logical favourite even though she comes into the event rusty, having not played since her shock US Open semi-final loss.
There were also lingering health concerns exacerbated when Williams withdrew from the Hopman Cup because of knee inflammation. Still, Williams just keeps rolling, rounding into form with an archetypical destruction of Su-Wei Hsieh in the second round, losing just three games in less than an hour.
It has been a remarkable performance by Williams who hasn’t played for four months. But did we expect anything else? Her dominance has been so vast, that it is not a stretch of hyperbole to rate Williams as the greatest athlete this millennium.
There have been so many remarkable sportspeople in the past 15 years, including Roger Federer, Lionel Messi, Tiger Woods, Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps and LeBron James. It could be well argued that Williams trumps them all.
Williams has long dominated tennis but these days, despite that stunning loss to Roberta Vinci at Flushing Meadows, she is truly transcending the women’s game.
Maybe Messi is doing something unfathomably similar in football, although he does have a noteworthy adversary in Cristiano Ronaldo. Bolt is probably the closest doppelganger to Williams, though athletics no longer has the cache it used to have and boasts fewer must-see events compared to tennis. Marvelling at Bolt’s superhuman performances are more intermittent.
Williams, with 21 majors, is inching closer to Steffi Graf’s open era record of 22 grand slams. She is already arguably the greatest women’s tennis player ever, considering her longevity – she won her first grand slam in 1999 – and the depth of the sport these days with players being spawned from virtually every part of the globe.
In grand slam finals, Williams is 21-4 – the best percentage in either the men’s or women’s game.
Williams is 34 years old – an age where even the great ones generally struggle or have already retired – but she’s seemingly getting better. She has won eight grand slams in the past four years, and amazingly was on course for the calendar grand slam last year before Vinci morphed into a superhero.
Despite the never-ending accolades and endless superlatives, Williams has often had a dubious standing among tennis fans and the broader sports community. She’s long been the antithesis of tennis’ quaint image of elegance and humility.
Perhaps her emergence, far removed from the stereotypical tennis prodigy upbringing, and then utter domination alarmed some of the traditionalists.
Her brashness – both in on-court histrionics and outlandish attire – has often been frowned upon by the traditionally conservative tennis fraternity. Her temperamental demeanour at times fuels the criticism.
Sometimes she appears disenchanted, or even perhaps just merely bored by her dominance, and consequently her game shockingly spirals into a meltdown.
Some critics loathe Williams’ playing style with her relentless slugging from the baseline being the prototype for a generation to essentially mimic a game built around sheer grunt rather than grace.
Powerfully built, Williams is an athletic marvel and the most imposing women’s tennis player ever. Much like LeBron in the NBA, her brutish physical attributes are just too overpowering for her opponents.
But it’s unfair to label her merely as brawn. Williams’ athleticism is underrated; she’s nimble and moves around the court exceedingly well. Precise footwork enables her to be in the perfect position to unleash her deadly groundstrokes.
Williams’ arsenal also contains arguably the most lethal serve ever seen in women’s tennis and a competent volley, on the rare occasion she does venture to the net. Williams has a knack of improvising her shots, a testament to her concentration and ability to see the ball late.
Williams no longer has a legitimate challenger. Once, there was her sister Venus, Justine Henin and Martina Hingis. These days Williams’ biggest obstacle is combating the swirl of expectation in her determined bid to conquer the deeds of the legends from yesteryear.
What few realised, including perhaps Williams herself for some time, was that she was most content when obliterating opponents on the court. The only athlete I’ve seen more ruthless was basketball legend Michael Jordan, who was famous for winning while psychologically destroying his rivals.
Williams is wired similarly. She’s basically a tennis cyborg sent to eviscerate all opponents. Impressively, Williams has conquered a whole new generation of players who are bred to counter her firepower. No one has come close to challenging her supremacy and ability to bully from the baseline.
Maria Sharapova, generally regarded as the next best player over the past decade, has lost 17 straight times to Williams. Like Jordan, Williams seems to relish any slight, however trivial, and use it to motivate herself.
Sharapova hasn’t beaten her since 2004, a year where she memorably defeated Williams at the Wimbledon final. Many heralded the then 17-year-old Russian as the next dominant player on the women’s circuit and a heap of attention was suddenly directed at the new glamour player.
You feel Williams took that personally. Sharapova won the rematch later that year, but Williams has not lost to her ever since. Williams’ utter domination over her ‘rival’ is one of the most astonishing feats in sports.
Williams’ edge is her aura and resolve. She isn’t scared by the spectre of defeat. She thrives when on the brink. Williams almost never plays conservatively; she’s always backing her instincts in the sheer belief that her innate attacking will pay dividends.
It doesn’t matter if she’s ill, injured or simply playing poor tennis, Williams routinely finds a way to win.
Much like her complete supremacy in 2002-03, Williams again finds herself clearly the dominant force in women’s tennis. It’s hard to think of another athlete in any sport rediscovering their peak more than a decade later.
One day, perhaps sooner than we may think, Williams will walk away from the sport. She’ll leave an enormous chasm, much like when Sir Donald Bradman left cricket or Jordan retired (the second time) from the NBA. Women’s tennis, hopefully fleetingly, will become less entertaining and feel slightly diminished in spectacle without Williams.
More than ever, the Australian Open presents an opportunity to savour one of the most iconic athletes we’ve ever seen.
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