Serena aims for a bigger set

It is a disconcerting experience to find yourself in a room with Serena Williams. Watch her on a tennis court and, like her opponents, you can’t help but be in awe of her muscular, aggressive presence. Sit next to her, close enough to glimpse her perfectly manicured nails and see inside her dainty designer handbag, and you are suddenly reminded that she is a 22-year-old young woman, and a very girly one at that.

Of course the Serena we will be seeing from Monday, when the French Open starts, will be Exhibit A — the hypertoned athlete, merciless champion of five of the past six grand slams she has played in and inventor of the ‘Serena Slam”, all four majors won consecutively.

Williams has more reason than most to bring out the scarier version in Paris, for last year she left Roland Garros in tears, having been booed by the crowd, who bayed for her opponent, the French-speaking Belgian Justine Henin-Hardenne. Many, Williams included, felt their tone was racist. It was cruel whatever it was, cruel enough to temporarily remove the warrior’s facade.

It is clear it still rankles, though she quickly retreats behind bravado.

‘The only thing I remember about last year is that I didn’t win,” she says, with an uncomfortable laugh. ‘I’ve been reading some articles about African-American history and a lot of worse things have happened. When I look at it like that, I’m spoiled.”

Indeed, life has spoiled her. She has seven grand slam titles, has been world number one and has the untold millions in the bank that come with being the most marketable female athlete in the world — Nike signed a deal reportedly worth $40-million in December. Yet none of it seems to be enough; she is trying to launch a parallel career in acting.

Typically, she is aiming high. Nothing less than the highest honours will do.

‘I don’t know that there’s anything better than holding up a trophy,” she says. ‘I’ve never held up an Oscar or an Emmy.”

She has opted to take the hard route and put herself through the gruelling audition process alongside the unknowns. She even seems to enjoy doing it the hard way.

‘It’s a little tougher in acting. It doesn’t matter who you are in Hollywood, you still have to go out for the auditions. I went for this audition and I studied all day, all night, all week for this huge movie, Be Cool, which is shooting now with Uma Thurman. I could not remember any of my lines. I went to read and I just went blank. I was so embarrassed. It was horrible.”

Whether she can balance the twin careers of tennis and acting remains to be seen, but it seems unlikely that the sport will keep her attention for long.

‘I’m not going to be able to play tennis for ever,” she says. ‘So I’m going to have to find something else that I can do.”

She is already committed to shooting a film after the United States Open, when her rivals will be slogging through the indoor season. But she is playing for now, bringing, as ever, a little bit of show business to tennis. As last year’s events in Paris showed, the on-court persona doesn’t always make her popular, nor does her habit of treating tennis as something of a sideline.

‘At first it was like, oh, the Williams sisters, they’re not winning, who are they? Then it’s they win too much and they’re always in the final. Now it’s where are they, we need the Williams sisters, when are they going to come back? What can I do? You’ve got to make yourself happy. I’m focused on me.”

Whatever happens at Roland Garros, whether it’s the glamorous incarnation or the racket-wielding Boudicca we see, it will be difficult for anyone to focus on anything else. —