Tag: Serena Williams

This year, Serena Williams won yet another singles major, giving her 18 for her career and making her a sure bet for US Women Athlete of the Year. She sat down with fellow 18-Slam winner Chris Evert in this revealing interview.

How have you managed to develop such a great friendship with Caroline Wozniacki? Martina Navratilova and I are good friends now, but when we were No. 1 and No. 2 in the world, we really weren’t that close.

I have had a love for Caroline from the day I met her. And then when times were tough for her and for me, we were always there for each other. Then it became texting once and then twice, and now we just text all day, every day. It’s just really fun to get to know someone that you are on tour with and travel with, and that knows what you’re going through, both on the court and off the court. We talk about how things are different for different players growing up. For me and Venus, not playing junior tennis was good for us. I asked her, “What was it like to play the juniors?” I never knew Junior Wimbledon existed until I was a few years on tour, I’m embarrassed to say. I didn’t realize that there was actually a junior event.

Your dad (also Williams’ former coach) didn’t guide you into junior tennis. Was that something people raised their eyebrows about?

Yes. And now I think if I had to play Junior Wimbledon and Junior French Open and all these tournaments, either I would have been really tired or kind of jaded after a certain amount of years. I would have been like, “Well, I’ve been doing this for so long.” Maybe it’s one of the reasons I’m able to play a lot longer, because I started differently.

Do you love to win or hate to lose?

The feeling of winning isn’t the same for me as the feeling of losing a match, emotionally. And I think that’s one of the reasons why I still play, because if I didn’t have a desire to be out there, I wouldn’t. I hate to lose a lot.

After a devastating first-round exit in the 2012 French Open, you turned to Patrick Mouratoglou for some coaching, then had a dynamite year in 2013. What did he see in your game?

It wasn’t what he saw, it was just what he did. He didn’t make me feel like I was changing anything. I think my foundation was strong enough that we just added to it. I was recently watching my old matches on YouTube. I found matches in 2009, 2010 and 2011, and I definitely have to say I think I’m a better player than I was then. I’m smoother. I move better on the court. I’m lighter on the court. My game looks a lot easier, like I’m not trying as hard. It’s a lot more effortless.

Going into last year, you said your goal was to make fewer errors. What do you want to change about your game in 2015?

Well, I want to move a lot faster on the court. I want to be more dynamic and just completely awesome out there. And I need to bring my serve back. My serve in 2014 was a little disappointing for me. I want my 2013 serve back, but a better version of that for 2015. I had so many double faults this year: I was hitting, like, seven in a match, and it was driving me insane. When I’m missing, I’m thinking, “Get it in,” which is not the right way to think. I am way too much of a perfectionist. I will practice on the court and three hours later I’m doing the same shot without taking a water break. And I’m like, “Serena, please quit” in my head. And then another part of my brain is like, “You’ve got to get it right.” But I made some changes this summer, and in Cincinnati (in August at the Western & Southern Open, which Williams won) I did a ton better. Patrick gave me some great hints, especially on my second serve.

You’re 33 now. Do you have days you wake up and it’s like, “Oh, I just want to stay in bed”?

For sure I do. But I think that’s normal. We play so many matches a year, I’m not going to be ready to play all of them. One or two of those matches I’m going to be like, “I don’t want to go.” But for me, the long-term picture is “I don’t want to go to that particular match,” but I definitely want to go to the end of the road. And that’s what keeps me going; I’m not ready for it to end.

You are the most famous female athlete in the world right now. And I know you’re a private person. Is there a price to pay?

I’m so used to it. And now I embrace it and appreciate it more. When I go out, I’m ready. I remember when everyone wanted your autograph. Now everyone wants a picture. The camera phone is the best thing and the worst thing ever invented. Now I have it down. I wear sleeves because of my arms. That’s what I realized gets recognized the fastest, so I always wear something long-sleeved, something really loose and a nice hat.

Interesting. I’ll be looking for you with that long shirt.

Pain and pleasure go hand-in-hand for Serena Williams when it comes to the French Open and the American hopes she will get an overdose of happiness in one of her favourite cities as she targets a third Roland Garros title.

Two years ago, Williams hit the lowest ebb when she slumped to a first-round exit in Paris, her first and only opening round defeat in a stellar grand slam career that has earned her 17 major singles titles.

The pain and anguish of that defeat melted away just 12 months later when she lifted the Suzanne Lenglen Cup for a second time.

But in a career littered with triumphs, it was surprisingly only her second win at the home of claycourt tennis and she is on a mission to rectify that anomaly over the next fortnight.

“For me, the French Open is extremely important because it’s a grand slam I won only twice and I want to win more and more,” the world number one said following the draw which pitted her against local hope Alize Lim in the first round.

“I won five times Wimbledon, Australian, the U.S. Open, so for me it’s important.

“I have the capability of playing on clay, so I don’t know why I wasn’t more consistent on clay before.

“But, hey, I guess better late than never, right?”

For her rivals, Williams doing well on clay spells doom and gloom as it was the only surface where they felt they had a strong possibility of stopping her charge towards more silverware.

Over the last three years, she has won at least one title on European dirt every season and, if anything, appears hungry for more success on what is largely conceived to be her least favorite surface.

SERENA Williams laid down the law once again in Miami a few days ago, but her loss the other evening in Charleston must leave many observers wondering just how much longer the 32-year-old, 17-time Grand Slam champion can continue to impose some sort of order on the WTA tour.

Now, this isn’t the same as saying that Williams is in decline, or that she won’t win another half-dozen majors, nor any of the other things defensive fans of Serena might read into that first paragraph. I introduced the issue partly because of what Williams herself said after her unexpected loss to Jana Cepelova: “I’m really just dead. I need some weeks off where I don’t think about tennis and kind of regroup. I’ve had a long couple of years, and I’m really a little fatigued.”

That’s an interesting (and, to many, almost alarming) declaration from a woman who’s played just 18 matches in four tournaments three full months into the year, and a player who had close to a full month off before the start of the Miami tournament that she won again on Sunday. As volatile as the WTA game the game has become, the absence of Williamsshould she decide to cut back on her pre-Roland Garros schedulecould unleash chaos.

For weeks now, I’ve been working with the theme that we may be in the midst of a transition, at least below the Top 5 level, on the ATP tour. But things seem, if anything, even more unpredictable in the WTA, not least because there’s really only one bankable player on hand: Serena Williams.

At Indian Wells about three weeks ago, not a single quarterfinalist from 2013 returned to that round (Serena skipped the event, as she always does, both of those years). That’s pretty amazing. Last week in Miami, the pecking order was somewhat stabilized, as four of last year’s quarterfinalists repeated their performance. Of course, Williams playedand wonin both 2013 and this year, which was a big boost for the status quo. But just three quarterfinalists from Indian Wells made the same round in Miami: Li Na, Agnieszka Radwanska, and Dominika Cibulkova.

Six of the top eight seeds in Miami made the quarters (the two women who surpassed official expectations were No. 10 seed Cibulkova and No. 11 Caroline Wozniacki), which suggests a measure of stability. But there are interesting caveats or question marks that can be attached to every last one of them.

Serena’s credentials are impeccable, but there is that age and fatigue issue. Going by her own testimony, you have to wonder how she’ll handle the end of spring and summer.

The No. 2 seed in Miami was Li. She’s the same age as Williams, but she’s never been nearly the same, reliable competitor. Would anyone really be shocked if she suddenly went through one of her periodic dark periods and couldn’t sustain her pace?

Radwanska was seeded No. 3 in Miami, a tournament she won in 2012 with an impressive win over then-No. 2 Maria Sharapova. But she’s had a hard time punching through the last wall (see her recent results at Wimbledon), and seems lately to be spinning her wheels. Losses this year to Cibulkova at the Australian Open and to Flavia Pennetta in the Indian Wells final are disappointing, and add credence to those who doubt her potential as a Grand Slam champ.

Sharapova was the No. 4 seed in Miami, and while she made her seed (she lost in the semis to Serena), her ranking tumbled all the way down to No. 9. She struggled for much or March, and seems to be forcing her game and fighting herself. Things are apt to get more complicated for her now that she can’t count on being seeded to make the quarterfinals, but when Serena is out of action, Sharapova will move up among the top eight seedsa welcome break during the time of year when Sharapova lately has done well.Angelique Kerber was seeded No. 5 in Miami, and she survived to the quarterfinals. Like Radwanska, she’s been having trouble punching through to the most elite level, even though her game is more explosive. Kerber took back-to-back first-round losses at Dubai and Indian Wells, indicators that the consistency that vaulted her into the top five in October of 2012 may have abandoned her. In the big picture, she’s lookedand playedas if she’s in over her head in the late stages of big events.

The No. 8 seed in Miami was Petra Kvitova, the 2011 Wimbledon champion. Unlike Kerber and Radwanska, she has won the big one, but she’s been less consistent than either of them. More than two full years after her breakthrough in London, the evidence suggests that while she’ll always be more dangerous and more capable of demolishing opponents than anyone save Williams and Sharapova, it’s a crap shoot whenever she walks on the court.

No. 11 Wozniacki exceeded her seed in Miami, but we’ve been down this path with her before. She’s needed a good tournament since falling out of the Top 10, but the two-time year-end No. 1 has a long way to go before she’ll convince anyone that she can win a major. At times, it seems like she’s content to be a big name without a huge win.

Cibulkova, the newest member of the WTA Top 10, joined Wozniacki in crashing the quarterfinals. Given the turmoil near the top, her consistency and stick-to-itiveness have been outstanding, and has been a welcome relief from the recent diet.

Of course, the Australian Open finalist is only now going through what Wozniacki, Radwanska, and Kerber have experienced in the heady days leading up to their status moments. But Cibulkova somehow seems made from sterner stuff than some of her fellow contenders. Her small size will always be a liability, perhaps even a significant one when it comes to her Grand Slam ambitions. But she seems curiously impervious to intimidation, and tends to go about her business in the same way no matter who she’s facing.

As for the rest of the field, it’s fairly loaded with former Grand Slam champs like Venus Williams, Ana Ivanovic, and Sam Stosur, as well as major finalists like Sabine Lisicki and Jelena Jankovic. Pennetta seems to be having her Francesca Schiavone moment, and players like Simona Halep, Garbine Muguruza, Elina Svitolina, Eugenie Bouchard, and Donna Vekic (among others) are coming on strong.

Serena Williams is The Associated Press’ 2013 Female Athlete of the Year, easily winning a vote by news organisations.

It’s the third AP award for the tennis star, who also won in 2002 and 2009.

Williams went 78-4 in 2013, including a 34-match winning streak and 11 titles. Her French Open and U.S. Open championships raised her Grand Slam total to 17 singles trophies. She was ranked No. 1 from February until the end of the season.

Williams received 55 of 96 votes in the AP results announced Wednesday.

Brittney Griner, a two-time AP Player of the Year in college basketball and the No. 1 overall pick in April’s WNBA draft, finished second with 14 votes. Swimmer Missy Franklin was next with 10.