Topic: Serena Williams: Tennis waits on its queen to make a decision on her return
Writter: Gaurav Kalra
Published on : The Times of India
Serena Williams: Tennis waits on its queen to make a decision on her return
One night last week Serena Williams was in distress. In desperation, she turned to her 10 million plus Twitter followers. Her daughter Alexis, born in September, wouldn’t stop crying. She was teething and the agonised mum equated it with the devil. Serena tried amber beds, cold towels, letting Alexis chew on her fingers, even homeopathic water, but nothing would work.
“It’s breaking my heart,” Serena wrote in a follow-up tweet. “I almost need my mom to come and hold me to sleep cause I’m so stressed. Help? Anyone?”
In an instant, a flood of counsel flooded Serena’s timeline. She hasn’t revealed yet if any of the remedies suggested worked and if little Alexis is indeed feeling better. However, it does appear quite apparent that returning to Melbourne in January to defend her Australian Open title isn’t an all-consuming obsession for Williams. Life has changed.
Serena’s comeback is among the most eagerly anticipated sporting occasions in the new year and from the dribbles on information that has flowed into the public domain, it remains unclear if she will play in Melbourne. Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley is, not surprisingly, quite eager for the seven-time champion to show up again and offering an upbeat spin to keep fans on the tenterhooks.
“She’s got her visa, she’s entered, she’s practicing and she’s probably just got to find a bit more space for a bigger entourage,” Tiley said in a recent interview. However, his enthusiasm isn’t shared by Williams’ coach Patrick Mouratoglou who said earlier this month that nothing had been decided.
In her time away, Williams has seen her ranking slip out of the top 20. Her only appearance on court since the birth of her daughter was at a charity event in Washington. With under a month to go for the Australian, it is unclear if she has been able to devote to the rigour of the practice regimen that will be required to make a strong bid for the title. And over her decorated career, it has been clear that Williams isn’t one to merely participate – if she enters a tournament, she targets nothing other than taking the trophy home.
“It’s the most outrageous plan,” she said in an interview to Vogue about her desire to return within three months of giving birth. “In this game, you can go dark fast. If I lose, and I lose again, it’s like, she’s done. Especially since I’m not 20 years old. I’ll tell you this much: I won’t win less. Either I win, or I don’t play.”
This insatiable hunger to win has meant Williams has constructed a jaw dropping career. Her 23 Grand Slam singles titles are the most in the Open era and another will put her on par with the all-time leader Margaret Court. In the modern game, there is quite simply, Serena, and everyone else. Even as a number of players jostle to break away from the pack, if Williams arrives at a tournament, she assumes the mantle of frontrunner.
No comebacks in sport are easy, least of all those within months of the birth of a child. It isn’t unprecedented of course for sportswomen to taste success after childbirth. Tennis itself has the shining example of Kim Clijsters who claimed two US Open titles after giving birth. And such is the Serena Williams aura that fellow pros are convinced she can return stronger.
“Regardless of how many matches she’s had previously or how much tennis she’s played,” says Johanna Konta, “She’s always Serena and the player or the athlete she is, she brings a lot of that to the table.” So, is another chapter to be added to this epic tale of a modern-day colossus? It won’t be long before we find out.
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