On the Line (31 page)

At 3–2, I found an unlikely source of motivation when I asked to use the bathroom. I don’t mean to be indelicate or less than
ladylike, but I really, really had to pee! I’d taken in so many fluids by this point, I was about to burst, but the umpire
wouldn’t give me permission to leave the court. I couldn’t understand it, and we argued about it for a while, and after a
full minute or two of discussion I threw up my hands and said, “I could have been back already!”

As it happened, my bladder gave me a whole new sense of urgency, and I broke Daniela’s serve in the very next game to go up
4–2, and that played out as just the opening I needed. I won the next two games, in convincing fashion, and at the end of
the match I was reduced to tears yet again. It was such a purposeful, emotional moment for me. For my whole family, too. Even
the fans, I heard later, were moved by the experience of watching that match. Everyone was crying and hugging each other and
letting out these great big sighs of relief that you could practically hear, and I just let all that emotion rain down on
me and fill me with a renewed sense of spirit and certainty.

I’d been good and gone for a good long while, but now I was good and back and raring to go—all on the shoulders of this unlikely,
uplifting fourth-round match at Wimbledon. Absolutely, that win in Australia had set me right, but in so many ways it was
this emotional win over Daniela Hantuchova that lit the fire that would take me the rest of the way.

U
nfortunately, wherever the rest of the way would take me, I had to make a couple more detours before finding it. Isn’t that
how it goes, more times than not? You power past some adversity or other, and then you hit some brand-new but related adversity
on the other side—only this time you’re better prepared for it. Even if the adversity gets the better of you on the follow-up,
you’re still in good shape for the next bad patch. And the one after that.

That’s kind of what happened to me here. I couldn’t get past the top-ranked Justine Henin in the quarterfinals of that Wimbledon
tournament, just as I hadn’t been able to get past her in the quarters at the 2007 French Open, and as I wouldn’t be able
to get past her in the quarters two months later at the 2007 U.S. Open. She had my measure that year—and here at the All England
Tennis Club in London she also had me reeling. My left calf was still impossibly sore after my marathon ordeal against Hantuchova.
Against a top player like Henin, I simply couldn’t keep up. On top of that, my left thumb started to give me more and more
trouble as the match progressed, and I just didn’t have it.

Still, I would not be deflated by these losses, and I look back and count that fourth-round match at Wimbledon as a great
and telling and pivotal moment—one of the most important matches of my career. It was me at a real crisis point, powering
through. Yes, the rest of the year was essentially a bust, but there was no letdown. Even when I struggled, there was no letdown.
How could there be a letdown, when you were down as low as I had been to start the season? When you pick yourself up from
the grass at Wimbledon (literally!) and find a way to win through the most terrible pain you’ve ever known?

And so I armed myself with all these fortifying, emboldening experiences from 2007, and I went into 2008 determined to finish
what I’d started the year before, and even though I was bounced in the quarters in Melbourne by Jelena Jankovic, I got off
to a solid start. I won my next three tournaments—a Tier II event in Bangalore, India, followed by Tier I championships in
Miami and Charleston—and by the time the spring and summer Slam events turned up on the calendar I was once again positioned
as a player to watch.

It’s like I was back on the tennis map, all because of that surprising win in Australia the year before and that gritty, rain-delayed
match at Wimbledon.

I was Serena Williams. Again. At last. And I would not be denied. I might beat myself from time to time, and I might run into
a brick wall every here and there, but I would be a force, here on in.

As it turned out, Venus would be on the court with me for three of my highlight moments that year. She beat me in the finals
at Wimbledon, in a match that quickly became legendary in tennis circles. Really, it was such a tremendous fight, on both
sides, although to be honest I wasn’t the most gracious loser in the world right after Venus won. See, I’d gotten off to a
breakout start in that match, and I’d been having such a breakout season, that I guess I didn’t have the strength of character
to shoulder the loss the way I normally might. And yet, if a lowlight can stand as a highlight, this one certainly ranks.
It was the first major disappointment of this second phase of my career, and at first I don’t think I handled it too well
(I sulked and grimaced all through the trophy ceremony at center court!), but I drew strength from it just the same. It was
the first real brick wall of the season, but I came away determined to bounce off of it and dust myself off and play on.

Together, Venus and I reached another Wimbledon final that year—in women’s doubles, beating Lisa Raymond of the United States
and Samantha Stosur of Australia in the finals. After such a disappointing loss in the singles final, it was a little like
earning the cherry on top but missing out on the ice cream sundae, but over time I was okay with just the cherry. A sweet
victory is just that—sweet! There’s no sense turning it bittersweet when you don’t have to, right?

Anyway, Lisa had been a top doubles player for years and years, so it was always an especially satisfying win when we had
to go through her, and here it put us in a good spot heading into the women’s doubles event in the 2008 Olympics, in Beijing.
We’d won a gold medal in doubles in 2000, and even after all this time on the tour that still stood out as one of the proudest,
most fulfilling moments of our careers, so we really wanted to have a strong showing. We went in as the #2 seed, and our hope
was to dominate all the way through. We stumbled a little out of the gate, though, losing the opening set of our first-round
match to a Czech team before setting things right. We ended up losing another set, to another team of sisters—Alona and Kateryna
Bondarenko, of Ukraine—but we got past them 4–6, 6–4, 6–1 to earn a spot in the finals against Anabel Medina Garrigues and
Virginia Ruano Pascual of Spain.

It’s a tremendous honor to represent your country in the Olympics—and when you do so alongside your sister, it’s off the charts!
Here it was even more tremendous than it had been in 2000. In the intervening years, the United States had undergone a kind
of transformation on the world stage. We went from being an admired superpower to this much-maligned, much-resented nation
all around the globe. You could hear it on the court, with fans so quick to boo or to judge just because we were Americans,
so we were doubly determined to do well, and we came out like a firestorm against that Spanish team. We played unbelievably
well, winning 6–2, 6–0, and we came away feeling so unbelievably proud and patriotic that I now place that gold medal right
up there with any of my Grand Slam tournament wins. It’s certainly my biggest doubles title, and it’s side-by-side with all
those others.

The final Venus-accompanied highlight of 2008, of course, was our quarterfinal showdown under the lights at the U.S. Open.
It was such a tense, gripping match. It felt like I had my back to the wall the entire time. Venus was just relentless that
night! But I hung in there. I look back and think,
Good for me! And good for Venus!
Somehow, I found a way to hold off ten set points and earn a 7–6 (6), 7–6 (7) win in a match that was delayed by more than
an hour to start and took nearly two and a half hours to complete. It was exhausting and exhilarating, all at the same time.

I was heartbroken for Venus, though. I really was. It’s one of the only times we’ve gone head-to-head where I felt badly for
her afterward, because she played so well. She certainly played well enough to win—but then, I did, too. After she had me
down that first break in the first set, I scrambled back. Then she had me 5–3, but I scrambled back again and pushed the first
set to a tiebreaker.

Venus said later that it felt like she was in control of the entire match, and I can see her view. I mean, she
was
in control, but she couldn’t put me away. I was like the Energizer Bunny on the other side of the net: I just kept going
and going. She certainly did dictate most of the points, but then she should know better than anybody else that I don’t like
to be told what to do.

She had me 5–3 in the second set, too, but I wouldn’t go away. Up 40–0! On her serve! But I fought off all those set points
and managed to break. She had another set point when I was serving at 5–6, but I held to force the tiebreaker.

The point of the match? That’s hard to say, there were so many of them, but a lot of people I talk to mention this one rally
from the second tiebreaker. Venus was up 4–2. Momentum seemed to have tilted in her favor, but I had that first-set cushion
to fall back on, so she was the one fighting for her tournament life. Me, I was just fighting. Here, down 4–2, I attempted
a forehand passing shot that I couldn’t power past Venus’s long arms, and she managed to put a volley deep into the corner.
I took off for it a beat or two before she played it (one of the advantages of knowing your opponent’s game!), and managed
to run it down and return a lob that I thought (hoped!) would clear Venus’s reach, but I was just short, and she was positioned
to put the point away. But here, too, I guessed correctly as Venus went into her overhead, and I fought off her smash, only
to send the ball right back to her sweet spot and set her up for a put-away volley.

It was one of those points they play over and over again on ESPN, it was so incredible. The fans just went crazy, and I had
to step back and catch my breath—because that last point really did take my breath away, in every respect.

Venus won the next point, which earned her another three set points—but I fought those off, too. That was the story of the
match. Venus kept pushing and I kept pushing back, and at some point I pushed back hard enough so that she was the one on
her heels. She missed a lot of shots, and I know she was frustrated, but it wasn’t like she handed me the match with all those
errors. No way. It’s not even like they were errors, not really. I just kept scraping and scrapping and scratching my way
through these points, running down every shot, prolonging the points just enough so that Venus was forced to be too fine with
her returns. I gave her no choice. I was getting to everything deep, so she had to go a little deeper. I was getting to everything
wide, so she had to go a little wider.

In the end, she just ran out of court.

When you win a match like that against your big sister, it’s an enormous responsibility, because now it’s on you to keep it
going and win the whole thing for the both of you. Venus had been playing so well that I knew she’d have gone on to win the
championship if I hadn’t knocked her from contention, so now I had to win. I didn’t need any additional incentive, but here
it was. There was also the carrot of returning to the number one spot in the rankings if I got past Dinara Safina in the semifinals—which
I did, behind a 6–3, 6–2 effort. And past Jelena Jankovic in the final—which I also did, 6–4, 7–5.

People had been talking about that number one ranking all week long, once top-ranked Ana Ivanovic of Serbia was knocked out
in the second round by Julie Coin of France. The talk was that the number one spot was up for grabs if any of the remaining
top seeds managed to win, and this was very much on my mind as I stood at the net, shaking Jelena’s hand right after the match.
My first and foremost thought was for this particular championship, of course, because that had been my goal all along and
the only result that was in my direct control, but I can’t lie and suggest I was unaware of what it meant in the rankings.

I knew. Believe me, I knew.

When I held that trophy high in the night sky, I knew full well that I was doing so as the top-ranked player in women’s tennis.
I knew it had been five years and one month since I was in that spot—the longest gap, I later learned, between number one
stints for any player in tennis history, male or female. I knew it felt good. Really, really good. And I knew I didn’t want
to let that feeling slip any time soon.

A
footnote: it had been so long since I’d been in the top spot I’d nearly forgotten what it was like up there. Mostly, it’s
refreshing and rewarding. Validating, too. It’s also fleeting, I’m afraid. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite get the job done
in my very next tournament and was dropped to the number three spot after only a couple weeks. All I could do was shrug my
shoulders and think,
Oh, well
… because I’ve realized after all this time in the game that sometimes this is how you have to play it. You give it your all,
and then you give it some more, and despite every ounce of sweat and effort you still might come up short, and when that happens
the thing to do is set it aside and come at it even harder. Figure out what went wrong, and what you can fix, and get on it.
Then, when you’ve done everything you can and still come up short, step back and take some small satisfaction in noting that
the two girls now ahead of you in the rankings have never won a Grand Slam.

And play on.

Be positive. Have only positivity going through your body. Be the best. Being the best starts by acting like U R the best.
Believing U R the best. Becoming the best. Believe. Become. Serena Williams. 8x Grand Slam winner. Only U! Stay confident.
U R a winner. Watch balls. Relax. Have fun. God blesses those who work hard. God blesses U, so work hard. Work, work, work.
Don’t crush every ball. Don’t put pressure on yourself. Don’t make mistakes. U R younger sister, so pressure is on V. Toss
high on serve. Don’t let ball drop. Hit behind her. She likes your pace. Try high balls. Let it flow.