On the Line (6 page)

Then, after a while, a lightbulb must have switched on in Anne’s head. She said, “Wait a minute. I think
I
was up 5–2.”

“What are you talking about?” I shot back. “
I’m
up 5–2.”

We went back and forth on this for a couple beats, but ultimately I prevailed. I was meaner about it, I guess, and yet somehow
this girl battled back to 5–5. That would have been a real stroke of justice for Anne if she managed to beat me anyway, but
for me, at this point, it would have been a humiliation. I know I’d already humiliated myself, but this would have just been
humiliation on top of humiliation. And so, in my narrow seven-year-old worldview, I was digging deep and making double-sure
this little girl didn’t somehow beat me—even though she already had. It became a real pride thing. A stupid pride thing. She’d
been up three games on me, and now she was up three more, and still I talked myself into thinking it would be some kind of
victory if I pushed the phony score in my favor.

Shame on me, right? Absolutely. But I was starting to realize that I
loved
to win. At all costs. I loved my family. I loved my sisters. But winning just about beat all, in my developing spirit of
competition.

In the end, I held on to “beat” Anne 7–5, and I somehow allowed myself to feel good about it afterward. Like I said, I counted
it as a victory. I’d backed myself into an impossible corner, and while I was there I convinced myself that I deserved to
win, that I was a better player than Anne, that the win meant more to me than it would have to her. All this nonsense to justify
my princess
–prima donna
behavior. And after I held on to legitimately win those final two games, I went right back to thinking I had more integrity
than my opponents, because I never cheated them on the lines. Even in this match against Anne, I didn’t cheat on the lines.
If my shot was out, I called it out. If her shot was in, I called it in. I just gave myself a bunch of games when she wasn’t
looking.

I was becoming a real player, but I still had a lot to learn.

M
y goodness, I had a rotten streak. I was horrible—a real witch! To my sisters. To my little kid opponents. I had this double-dose
of mischief and rebellion that couldn’t help but bubble forth. It even came out with my parents—against my better judgment.
But I was smart: I always had deniability. That’s what they call it on those
Law and Order
shows I like to watch:
plausible deniability
. I could always point the finger, look the other way, or pretend to have no idea there was any kind of trouble. That’s one
of the great benefits of being the youngest. People are inclined to see your side because you’re cute.

Of course, it’s significant to note that I never thought of myself as cute. That might have been my role in the family, but
that wasn’t my self-image. I looked in the mirror and saw an ugly duckling. Now, all these years later, I look at pictures
of myself from back then and think,
How could my mom have let me out of the house looking like
that
?
I blame my sisters, too. Even then, they had a real sense of style, a sense of fashion, a flash and flair. Surely, they must
have noticed how goofy I looked.

But all I got back was that I was cute, so of course I put that to work for me. Once, I “accidentally” hit my dad with a tennis
ball, and I used my cute persona to full advantage to deflect the blame. The way it worked, whenever someone was on the other
side of the net and a shot got away from us, we were supposed to shout, “A ball! A ball!” Like the way a golfer shouts “Fore!”
So one afternoon when I was feeling particularly disgruntled or beaten down by a particularly grueling session, I whacked
a hard liner in the direction of my dad, who was picking up balls and had his back to the net. I don’t think I meant to hit
him, exactly, but it was clear to me that was where the ball was going, and I certainly had time to call out a warning. But
I didn’t. I just watched as the ball smacked him full-on. Startled him pretty good. Stung him, too.

We giggled on the other side of the net, because there’s nothing funnier when you’re a kid than seeing a grown-up get thwacked
with a tennis ball.

My father said, “Who hit that ball?” He wasn’t mad. Or, again, he didn’t
sound
mad. He sounded curious.

We giggled some more.

Once again, he said, “Who hit that ball?” He approached the net. We were trying his patience. That was a line we used to hear
a lot as kids.

I didn’t think I could stand right next to my dad and keep a straight face and maintain my deniability, so before he got any
closer I pointed to Venus and said, “Venus hit it, Daddy.”

Venus looked like she wanted to smack me with her racquet, but she didn’t cover for me. She pointed at me and said, “It wasn’t
me, Daddy. It was Serena.” Then I pointed right back at V and said, “No, Daddy. It was Venus.” We went back and forth like
this, blaming each other, until Daddy finally got so disgusted with both of us he walked off and left us to figure it out
for ourselves.

There was another time when Venus couldn’t have covered for me if she wanted to. We had just finished a hitting session with
this guy named Jumo, who used to come around and help out my father every now and then. Daddy collected a lot of unusual characters
when we were living in California, people who had played tennis or had been around the game. He was like a magnet for the
tennis fringe, and for a long time he had his friend Jumo meet us at the court to hit with us. Jumo was tall and skinny, with
a full head of dreadlocks—not the sort of guy you’d expect to see with a tennis racquet in his hands. He drove this big, faded-green
delivery truck. But he could play. That was all Daddy cared about. He liked it when other people hit with us, because then
he could stand back on our side and talk to us about our footwork or our positioning or whatever else we happened to be working
on at the time. Plus, he thought it helped us to have to hit to a lot of different people so we could experience all these
different approaches, all these different styles.

Jumo was a good soul, too. He brought us oranges one day, for some reason. A whole bag. I was a little older by this point,
maybe eight or nine. We put the oranges in the shopping cart while we were hitting, and then I think we must have forgotten
about them. At least, my dad must have forgotten about them, because when it came time to work on our serves Daddy said he
was going around the corner to get us some Super Socko. That was always another one of our special treats—a sports drink they
used to sell in some of the local grocery stores that basically tasted like lemonade. If he’d remembered the oranges, he probably
would have peeled a couple and given them to us instead. But off he went in search of our Super Sockos.

We always ended our practices working on our serves. That’s the way they do it at most camps and clinics and academies, I’ve
discovered, but more often than not coaches don’t leave much time for it, which is why I think it takes so long for youth
players to develop an effective serve. It’s just been a neglected part of their game for so long. But my dad took a different
approach. He had us work pretty diligently on our serves, and that’s probably why it’s such an effective part of our game.
We worked on it at the very end of our sessions, but there was no clock on what we were doing. He’d have us out there serving
until it got dark—or, sometimes, even after it got dark. We’d work it and work it until we had it down. Then we’d work it
some more. The whole time, Venus and I would just talk and talk. The time flew, because we’d be chattering up a storm. It
was the only moment during our practice session where it was just the two of us, side by side, so it was like we were catching
up.

Daddy’s routine was to have us toss a football back and forth before we started serving. It sounds like a gimmick, but it’s
really not; he saw it in one of his teaching videos and it struck him as a good idea, because the crisp, snapping overhead
motion you need to make in order to get a football to spin in a tight spiral almost precisely mirrors the crisp, snapping
overhead motion you need to achieve a powerful serve. So that’s what we’d do. Venus and I would stand across the net from
each other, close, and start tossing the football. Every few minutes, we’d take a couple steps back, until finally we were
throwing baseline to baseline. Then we’d start serving.

We
still
toss the football around before we serve—only now my nails are a problem. (Daddy hadn’t counted on
that
!) Back then, we didn’t care about having elegant fingernails, but now I have to catch the football with the heels of my palms
so I don’t break a nail. Venus, too. It’s the one thing we do on a tennis court that looks awkward, but that’s the small price
we pay for fashion.

So there we were, working on our serves. Jumo was gone. Daddy had disappeared into the store. It was inevitable that we kids
would dawdle a bit, with no one watching. Self-discipline took us only so far, I guess. I wandered over to our cart and saw
that big bag of oranges on top, and without even thinking about it I started smashing them. Here again, I’ve got no justification
or explanation for my behavior. It was just that devil streak spilling forth. I picked up a couple oranges and served them
over the fence. Then I started smashing them right there in the cart. I was like a wild child. I unleashed on these defenseless
oranges. I didn’t think about it. I just went a little crazy.

I couldn’t sweet-talk my way out of this one, because Daddy came back from the store and caught me in the act. I was swinging
so furiously at those oranges, I didn’t notice him return. He took one look at all that mess and pulp, and he could tell right
away that I was the one responsible. Venus and the others didn’t give me up. It was on me. I got myself chased from the court—and
caught a good whupping, too. And I deserved it, I suppose.

We tell this story now and laugh about it, but at the time it was upsetting to me that I could have acted so brazenly, so
heartlessly. To have beaten back a kindness offered by this good man, for no reason at all. Now, as an adult, I recognize
that my actions here offered a glimpse into the mind of a competitive athlete. At least, it offered a glimpse into
my
mind. Into
me
, and the young athlete I was slowly becoming. I’ve tried to understand it, and what I’ve come up with is you need a wild
streak if you hope to be a serious competitor. You need a kind of irrational killer instinct. You need to put it out there
that you’re reckless and unpredictable—not just so your opponents take note, but so that you notice, too. You’ve got to convince
yourself that you’re capable of anything, that you will not be denied, that you’ll do whatever it takes to accomplish whatever
it is you’re out to accomplish. You need to surprise yourself, too. And you’ve got to embrace the wild, rash abandon that
finds you and lifts you and transforms you in the heat of a cutthroat moment. It’s almost like you’ve got to get to that weird
place where you can’t recognize your own behavior, and here I certainly couldn’t spot myself in what I was doing. Understand,
I didn’t
like
what I was doing too terribly much. I didn’t know who I was, smashing those oranges. It was a little scary. But on the court,
I loved it. On the court, it made sense. And looking back, it’s really the first glimpse I had of the passion I’d soon develop
on the court. The passion I’d
need
to develop if I meant to grow my game.

The greatest love of all? At first, it was my family. My sisters. But then tennis mixed itself in, and I have to think that
emotional attachment to the game was what started to bubble forth that afternoon on the practice court. At the time, of course,
I couldn’t put any of this stuff into words. It was just me smashing up a bushel of oranges. After it was over it was easier
to laugh about it than to think it through, so I let my sisters believe I was just making some mischief and letting off steam.
But there was more to it than that.

Be strong. Be black. Now’s your time to shine. Be confident. They want to see you angry. Be angry, but don’t let them see
it. Play angry, but let them see confidence. Play angry, but let them see patience. Play angry, but let them see certainty.
Play angry, but let them see determination.

—
MATCH BOOK ENTRY

O
ne year. Three months. Nine days. That’s the age difference between me and my older sister Venus. These days, it doesn’t seem
like much, but when we were kids it felt like I’d never fill the gap.

She cast a big shadow, I’ll say that. She was taller, prettier, quicker, more athletic. And, she was certainly
nicer
. There was no living up to her. I certainly tried. I wanted to do everything just like Venus. Like Lyn, too, but Venus was
first in line. Whenever we went to a restaurant, my mom would make me order first, because if I didn’t I’d just order whatever
Venus ordered. I’d never speak my own mind. When we were little it was always “Venus this” and “Venus that.” “Venus, Venus,
Venus.” The more we developed as players, the more I became the tagalong kid sister. That was the perception.

I still remember this one national newspaper article about Venus that suggested I’d never be anything more than a footnote
to Venus’s career. It talked about how in tennis the younger sibling never amounts to much, and how that would be my fate,
too. That article came later, after we’d started playing in some tournaments, but it put me in mind of how I felt when we
first started playing seriously.

Imagine somebody writing something like that about a child. Declaring that a younger sibling would never amount to much. It’s
harsh, don’t you think? That’s why I always have all this sympathy for the younger siblings, for people like Eli Manning and
Patrick McEnroe. Everyone counts you out before you even get started. For our whole life, growing up, we’re like the underdogs.