The Hindu : Sport : Serena — always worth watching

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Wednesday, May 30, 2007
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Serena — always worth watching

Serena's flaw, in a way, is her attraction, writes Rohit Brijnath

Evaluating an athlete's chances at a major tournament follows an established process. You measure current form, interpret statistics, verify past performance at that event, compute fitness, and then predict a result.

By any reckoning, a player who hasn't had an authoritative clay season since 2002 (when she won 16 of 17 matches including the French Open), who hasn't reached any final on clay since 2003, who last played the French in 2004, who didn't even play a clay event in 2006, who has a complaining knee and a playing style more violent than thoughtful, has absolutely no chance of succeeding at Roland Garros.

Exceptions

Till you mention that player is Serena Williams, and you shrug, and mumble that well, you know, all rules have exceptions. If she can win the 2007 Australian Open at No.81, overweight, with only four tournaments played in 2006, then perhaps one should reconsider all predictions for Paris, too.

In a way it does not matter if Serena loses in the second round of the French Open, or doesn't lose through the entire tournament. What matters is that she is worth watching, an infuriating, complicated, original, energising athlete. Even those she irritates cannot easily turn away. There are few more compelling women in sport.

Serena is worth watching for she frustrates and fascinates for the same reason. Her flaw in a way is her attraction. She will not focus a 100 per cent on tennis, yet finds a way to win. At one level, she is no role model because she appears distracted by life outside tennis; at another level her lust for a fight makes her a powerful example. We respect and recommend the disciplined, focussed athlete, yet we slyly long for the occasional maverick.

In a sporting world of calculating body-fat, computing lung capacity, gauging speed over 10 yards, Serena reminds us that some athletes possess an extraordinary ingredient that can't be measured or manufactured. She has what the French call je ne sais quois, a sort of undefined something, a special quality, and it is fitting in a way that it cannot be explained.

Not everything about champions should be understood.

A diva

Serena is worth watching because she is a diva. Tennis has had its unaffected heroines like the disciplined, devout Margaret Court, the unblinking Helen Wills Moody, the resolute Graf, the interrogator-stern Henin. It has also had its actresses, like Navratilova, like the silk-dress sheathed, make-up caked Suzanne Lenglen, of whom Bill Tilden said: "Sure she was a poser, a ham in the theatrical sense". Like Serena.

Theatrical

She is worth watching because she is instinctively theatrical, a gesticulating, brassy performance artist. Few rounds she plays are mundane. On Sunday, in the opening round of the French, she arrived with a fresh outfit, new hair cut and first set wobbles. She yelled, fought, won and said, bluntly, of her opponent later: "I knew that if I did go down, then there's a 99.9 per cent chance that she would not win the next round. So that encouraged me to even fight harder." Not always is she accused of grace.

Yet if at one level Serena appears to disrespect tennis by not giving it her full concentration year round, at another level she does it great service by never quitting. As Helen Wills Moody once wrote: "The greatest honour that one player can pay another on the court is that of playing hard and going out for every shot".

Serena is worth watching because some days she could melt Rocky with a look.

Navratilova's intimidation came from a muscular athleticism, Seles' from her two-sided ferocious hitting, Graf's from her assassin-like demeanour.

Intimidation

Williams junior intimidates through a combination of physical menace and brutal game, her tennis does not even have a passing acquaintance with subtlety. She is not pretty yet owns a raw, unadulterated beauty, her tennis is less `Swan Lake' and more `Fight Club'.

Thuggery may not work at the French unless accompanied by patience. It may be beyond her. But then Don Quixote is her patron saint and she will enjoy this tilting at windmills in Paris. Victory looks difficult, but even in defeat, Serena promises a show.

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