What a year it has been.
The past 12 months have been the most eventful of Serena Williams’s extraordinary life; the caveat is that little of it happened on a tennis court.
Last year at this time Serena was in West Palm Beach about to give birth to a daughter, her first child, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. When the birth happened midway through the US Open, the press eagerly peppered her sister, Venus, with questions about her sister and niece. Aunt Venus was oddly mum – for reasons we now know had to do with very serious health concerns about both baby and mother.
Serena, 36, a disciplined athlete and notable perfectionist, has lived her life in the spotlight for more than two decades, but this was a challenge of a different order.
“I don’t need the money or the titles or the prestige. I want them, but I don’t need them. That’s a different feeling for me.”
In the past year, Serena has been the subject of a revealing five-part HBO documentary, “Being Serena.” She has been profiled with startling nakedness in Vanity Fair and Vogue, providing behind-the-scenes details of her courtship by the Internet entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian; her playing and winning the 2017 Australian Open while eight weeks pregnant (a fact known only to her now-husband, sister Venus, doctor and a couple of close confidants); and life-threatening postpartum complications.
Serena beat her big sister in that Australian final. Venus would later joke that it had been an unfair matchup: two against one, as it were.
Tennis has never drifted far from Serena’s mind; she posted Instagram photos of herself practicing in Florida while seven months pregnant. But more than wins and losses, Serena’s preparation for this year’s US Open is a question of new motherhood; a new marriage; and her struggles and fears about returning to her day job and status as the best player on tour.
After giving birth in September and marrying in November, Serena had hoped to resume playing at the year’s first major, the Australian Open in January. Her ongoing medical recovery kept her out of Melbourne, but Serena returned to the tour in March at Indian Wells – playing her first WTA matches in 14 months. This time she lost to Venus in the third round.
Serena bowed out in the first round in her next, hometown tournament, the Miami Open, where she was soundly defeated by 20-year-old Naomi Osaka. At the French Open, which she has won three times, Williams won three matches, including over the No 17 and 11 seeds, before pulling out with a shoulder injury before an anticipated encounter with Maria Sharapova.
Even with that spotty preparation and injury that kept her from practicing her serve, Serena entered Wimbledon as a favorite to win her eighth championship at the All-England Club. Williams made the final but lost to Angelique Kerber of Germany.
Serena’s North American hard-court season began disastrously. She suffered the worst defeat of her career in San Jose, thrashed by 39th-ranked Johanna Konta of Great Britain, 6-1, 6-0. Williams won the first game and then lost the next 12.
Serena promptly withdrew from the Rogers Cup in Montreal, raising fears that she was injured or ill-prepared to play the summer circuit and might not be able to contend an 18th US Open.
But earlier this month, Serena took the court at the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati. Unseeded but now “up” to No. 27 in the rankings from a low of 491 in Miami, Williams showed few signs of rust in her opening round. She lost just three games to the energetic young Australian, Daria Gavrilova.
Serena’s second-round match was worthy of a major final. In a high-quality slugfest, she lost for just the second time in seven matches against big-hitting Petra Kvitova, the two-time Wimbledon champion, in three extremely tough and entertaining sets.
That’s it for Serena’s tennis over the last 20 months.
“I'm still at the very beginning,” Williams said after her loss to Kvitova. “You know, this is a long comeback. I just started.
“I'm getting there, and I'm going to just continue to work hard, and hopefully I'll start winning more matches. I think I just definitely want to get a more consistent serve, more than anything, and return more consistently. Basically my whole game needs to improve.”
Still, even with so little match play, such is Serena’s stature that only a fool would disregard her chances to win a sixth US Open crown. Were she to win, it would be her 24th Slam, equaling the tally of the Australian Margaret Court.
“Maybe this goes without saying, but it needs to be said in a powerful way: I absolutely want more Grand Slams,” Serena told Vogue. “I’m well aware of the record books. It’s not a secret that I have my sights on 25.”
“I don’t need the money or the titles or the prestige,” she continued. “I want them, but I don’t need them. That’s a different feeling for me.”
Serena Williams is a singular athlete, already considered by most to be the greatest woman ever to play tennis (and many would subtract the qualifier of her sex). She is an international celebrity and icon, a one-name star with few peers. Her path has been groundbreaking and historic. As a fierce and fearless competitor and African-American woman who rose from the streets of Compton with little traditional tennis preparation, she has long been a powerful symbol.
On tour, Serena Williams exists in her own stratosphere. She is the most feared player in the game, a woman as legendary for her blistering serve and forehand as she is her tremendous fight and willpower.
Playing while pregnant? Still the favorite. Injured and unable to serve at full strength? Still the favorite. A new mom with little match play? Still the favorite.
The rules don’t seem to apply to Serena Williams.
“Maybe having a baby on the tennis tour is the most rebellious thing I could ever do,” she told Vogue in January.
So the logical follow-up to that bold act? How about, two decades after her first US Open, adding to her trove of major titles and entering the record books as the most accomplished Slam winner – and greatest tennis player, period – in history?
