The younger Williams sister won the US Open two years ago but has since been eclipsed by Venus
Stephen Bierley
Two years ago, as the Manhattan traffic crawled across Queensboro bridge towards Queens home of the Mets and, for two weeks in late summer, the United States Open tennis championships New York drivers were confronted by a massive poster of a beaming Venus Williams.
She was still smiling pearls at the end of that fortnight, even though privately she may have been spitting blood as her younger sister, Serena, had the temerity to win the event. One way or another Serena has been paying for it ever since.
Their father, Richard, had virtually decreed that Venus, the image of himself, would be the first of the sisters to win a grand slam title. In 1998 she had reached the US Open semifinals hence the billboard but a year later stalled at the same stage. Serena, then only 17, muscled past Switzerland’s Martina Hingis 6-3 7-6 in the final.
There were many within the professional game who immediately insisted that Serena, the more ebullient and powerful of the pair, would prove dominant. But it has not turned out that way.
Venus has held the upper hand since, winning Wimbledon and the US Open last year, and successfully defending her grass-court title in July. In the same period, apart from reaching last year’s Wimbledon semifinals, where she lost to Venus, Serena has failed to get beyond the quarterfinals of a grand slam event.
Not that her tennis career has exactly stood still. She won three WTA Tour titles last year and two more this, including last week’s tournament in Toronto where she defeated Jennifer Capriati, the reigning Australian and French Open champion, in a three-set final. But her post-match comment that “I really needed this win” indicated the sibling pressure.
It is no easier to get to the bottom of what is going on within the Williams family than when it first burst on to the professional tennis stage Venus in 1997, Serena a year later with father promising his daughters would become the joint world number ones, then divvy out the major titles according to whose turn it was. The impact the two Americans have since made is indisputable. Much of it has been beneficial but Richard’s permanent pursuit of publicity for himself and for his daughters has become increasingly wearisome.
Venus, while never anything less than intensely loyal, has managed to distance herself a little from her father, as befits a 21-year-old who has proved her championship credentials. Serena, though, is still struggling to establish herself in her own right. Several American commentators were prepared to argue during this year’s French Open, and again at Wimbledon, that Serena might turn her back on tennis in the very near future, citing her lack of commitment, lack of fitness and the litany of excuses after defeat, ranging from injuries to food poisoning.
After quarterfinal defeats at the Australian and French Opens and Wimbledon, Serena complained of an upset stomach, saying she had been “unable to eat for days”. Then, most recently, came the “revelation” that she had become an obsessive online shopaholic. “It hit its worst at the French Open. Everyday I was in my room and I was online. I wasn’t able to stop and I bought, bought, bought. I was just out of control.”
It is impossible to know the full extent of any such problem. Was it merely a Max Clifford-style smokescreen, wafted by Richard to hide Serena’s relative lack of big-time success this year, to say nothing of her lack of interest? Certainly her claim that she started shopping online to avoid being recognised in public is hard to swallow, given the inclination of both sisters to court publicity at every twist and turn.
Two years ago, it appeared the sisters had only to see off Hingis in order to hold sway in the women’s game. This they achieved, but the restoration of Capriati, a power player herself, and the steady rise of a new generation including Belgium’s Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin has prevented the family hegemony their father believed inevitable.
“Richard really is a bit of an oddball who never misses the opportunity to bang the PR drum,” observed Martina Navratilova, “but neither Venus nor Serena really needs that any more.” Richard haslll always received short shrift in New York, where injudicious comments about the city’s Jewish community made certain any race card he attempted to play in defence of his daughters was hurled back in his face.
It would be better for both players, Serena in particular, if their father kept a low profile during the tournament, allowing them to do their talking on the Flushing Meadows hard courts. Ultimately both will be judged as tennis players, on their records.
It remains possible that between them they will dominate the game for another decade. But in all probability they will not. Indeed Serena, struggling with weight problems, teen-age angst and the pressure of her sister’s success, may be unable to cope with the strain for very much longer.