Knowing Your Place

Serena Williams thought she was going to out tough her sister again. The 2002 and 2003 champion of Wimbledon figured once the final with Venus was an actual reality that she was going to follow the same script and hector her older sibling off the court.

And could you blame her for not using the same strategy? It’s the Serena way, and if you thought that was always going to be a little tempered down because Venus Williams was across the net, just like Bill Simmons you haven’t been watching tennis for the last decade.

It was working just like it did the last five finals that they have played for a Grand Slam title, a reason coming into the match why Serena had eight Grand Slams, all the majors, and why Venus had six. The first two games were thro dominations, making Venus play for putting in second serves and delivering serves like did against Agnieska Radwanska and Jie Zheng.

Already up 2-0, imposing her will yet again.

Then a moment happened in the match that may swing the battles that these two sisters may have in the future back into the hands of the elder. It wasn’t the sole reason for why the four time champion became a five time winner instead of the second time titlist becoming a third. But it was the paradigm for the 7-5, 6-4 result not going the way of the younger sister.

Because when Serena tried to hit a backhand passing shot right at Venus to try and force deuce in a third game that was a must hold for the title holder, there were no signs of faltering from the one coincidently sharing the same name as the titled trophy. Instead of dumping it into the night and submitting to Serena’s at times intimidating will, all Venus did was hold her ground and deftly volley a double hander right across the net. On the scoreboard, simply by making the best statement she could make at that instance.

No signs of early capitulating, no signs of mental fragility against Serena this time around, no matter how hard she tried to induce it. Venus Williams showed to her 26 year old sibling that today was going to be different.

And at match’s end, it certainly was.

“I hung in there and managed to get the break back,” said the now seven time Grand Slam champion to Mary Carillo after the match. “It was all about the serve and who was going to be able to return more serves, so I tried to focus on that.”

Oh did she indeed focus closely on that critical aspect of the match. After that first game of the match, where she paid the price for missing her first serve, Venus bucked down deep whenever she had to hit her second delivery. It was either feast or be famine, because she knew anything short of top quality was going to be belted by Serena. Somehow though, the aura of Centre Court and this tournament make her second serve (and forehand) go from self-destruction shots to critical constituents in her title pursuits. Her seemingly indefensible slice delivery out wide has been a staple of her legacy at SW 19. But it plays second fiddle to the one that’s near and dear to her heart.

“The body is my favorite here,” said Venus in the press conference. “I’m hitting it with a lot of pace, too.” And in a statement that you would expect more from her finals’ counterpart, Venus left one that truly represented how not only her confidence in her punishing serve, but how she wanted to win this title, even against her sister.

“ You can’t defend it.”

Serena’s response to that integral part of her sister’s game plan?

“I think that was her tactic, to serve every ball into the body,” she said. “I’m glad she did it, because next time I know what to expect.”

You had to chuckle at that response from Serena Williams there. As with Venus’ description of how effective her body serve was, that soundbite from Serena is evidence of how annoyed she was with not winning the title. It may serve as even more motivation for her than her three defeats to Justine Henin last year or her two wrong decisions to a then 17 year old Maria Sharapova in 2004. In fact, it may drive the still eight time Grand Slam champion more than even losing to Venus earlier in her career like she did.

Regardless of that fighting spirit, her tactics against her sister may need to be slightly altered. No more can she just simply rely on being tougher and outslugging her sister into submission. Normally against any other opponent, Serena would have tried to hit a cross court passing shot against Venus in that third game. But she tried to test her sister with an emphatic shot right at her, only to get burn by a volley that gave Venus the crucial point to just get a game. That costly decision was more of a staple for her defeat than the number of missed break point opportunities or her second fiddle status in the long rallies of the match. Her movement, through still good, was no where on the level of her sister’s.

And that played a huge factor in the all important transition game, where the best passing shot she could come up with against Venus was on break point in the fifth game of the first set. Unfortunately, even that cheeky backhand flick did not cause a Venus’ volley into the net. Instead, it produced a crisp winner that serve as one of the 11 break point opportunities the world number six failed to convert. Most importantly though, because the number of missed break points is so misleading, is the number of games in which she had a break point on serve that she didn’t win. In the four game on her opponent’s serve where she had break points, Serena only broke in two of them. And that second one came at the hands of Venus’ slipping on the court in the third game of what proved to be the final set.

Other than that, Serena was at the mercy of her sister’s bombing serve, especially when she was apart of Venus resetting her 129 mph record. Despite trying to stay as calm as possible out on the court (she grunted less than she did in the latter stages of the first set) with a few nice forehands and approach shots, she lost the precision that she had on serve throughout the tournament, especially in the last two matches she played. And with that, her frustration failed to wane, a massive obverse to the consistent serenity that Venus shows anywhere on any court at any time.

It was that placidness that maybe was the reason why Venus couldn’t take the title at Wimbledon against her sister in the past, why she lost five consecutive times in the big matches, in the big moments, against her. With that, she was determined to over come those past demons without changing a simple thing.

“Obviously I wanted to try and improve the record, and I didn’t want the same trend to keep happening and then be like 6-1,” she said. “So I climbed a tiny little notch up, so it’s 2-5. Still behind, but I’m working on it.”

While she goes ahead and works on that, there is no need for her to be more diligent than she needs to at Wimbledon. Five titles, two behind Martina Navitalova and four behind Steffi Graf, today sealed her status as one of the greatest grass courters of all time, if it wasn’t already sealed. And really, even at Graf’s best, could you really see her mustering up enough magic to beat Venus? Even her staunchest supporters, and Andre Agassi, would be considered irrational if they didn’t think that Venus would still own her.

Serena thought she was going to owe her sister again through her own one-way traffic approach, but was certainly abashed after the match as was dejected. She now has only five defeats this year (six if you count her withdraw to Alize Cornet at the Italian Open), but three of them now have come at the worst possible of times. She was the best player the first eight days of this year’s Australian Open, only to play a horror of a match against Jelena Jankovic in the quarterfinals (and receiving probably an imaginative letter from Maria Sharapova thinking her so for that). With Justine Henin’s shocking retirement, she looked to be in prime position to win her second French Open, only to be plagued a myriad of blown easy shots and power driven out of Roland Garros by Katrina Srebotnik.

And now, with those two defeats, she was desperate to end her Grand Slam drought by ending her Wimbledon one simultaneously. She displayed that form coming into the final, and everyone favored that her gameplan that had work against Venus in the past was going to be the difference in the match favoring her.

Instead, a look of sullenness and regret took the place of the happiness that she saw against Venus in 2002 and 2003. All the hard work that she put in wasn’t good to defeat the assiduous attitude that her sister also displayed throughout the year. “We both worked really hard this year,” said Venus. “And I think the results showed here, both in the singles and doubles.”

For Serena in the singles however, it wasn’t the result that she wanted.

“I just lost my rhythm and then I just made a lot of errors,” said the downtrodden figure. “I just couldn’t get the balls in, nothing I was doing was seeming to work.”

Including most importantly that game plan of hers. A game plan that Venus Williams doesn’t take from anyone, including her sister. And she may not take it anymore.