Did you wonder, in recent years, what the United States' strategy was for improving on clay? Did you wonder if there was one? If so, you were obviously wrong to worry. After this past weekend, we know what the plan was all along: Wait for a 30-year-old, oft-injured, oft-distracted 13-time Grand Slam women’s champ to put it all together again on Charleston Har-Tru, at the same time that a 6-foot-9, 27-year-old college grad known primarily for his serve sweeps Roger Federer and the French Davis Cup team off their home courts on dirt. Brilliant!
That may sound far-fetched, but that’s what has happened. We know Isner’s performance has real implications for the U.S. team, but how significant was Serena’s highly efficient—to put it mildly—performance at the Family Circle Cup?
The future will always be unknown with Serena. Last summer she won in Stanford and Toronto before appearing to lose interest in Cincinnati—in the tennis, if not the local roller coaster. Serena fielded questions all last week about the upcoming French Open and whether she was ready to win it this time. She said she was, that she always is, in part because Paris is her favorite city and she hates to leave it. “I’m always ready to win the French Open and I never do,” she concluded. “So hopefully this will be the 20th year in a row that I’m ready to win.”
Technically, it has only been 17 years since Serena turned pro, but she knows it's a long way from Charleston in early April to Roland Garros in late May. For now, all we can say is that Serena killed it last week, on court as well as in the pressroom. This player who plays by her moods seemed to be in a good one. She said she loves Paris, loves clay (“I don’t have to go crazy and move my feet so much”), loves Grand Slams (“I’m always wearing dresses”), and loves the local food (“It was so good,” she said of the banana pudding, “I was just, like, oh my gosh”). Serena told the men’s tour that “they need to stand up for themselves,” and even scripted her own exit from one presser. Asked what the “craziest thing anyone ever asked you for after a match” was, Serena asked back “Well, besides the obvious?” She laughed. “Thank you. I think we’ll end on that.”
Vika, Caro, Petra, and Aga we not in attendance, and against three of those players Williams will be forced to hit more balls on clay than she was in Charleston. But do you think any of them could have beaten her the way she was playing over the final weekend? I doubt it. Serena lost three games in total to Sam Stosur and Lucie Safarova. In some ways, she has echoed her fellow living legend Roger Federer lately. Once, both of them saved their best for the Grand Slams; now they tend to show it off at shorter events, while they hit a wall, or at least a speed bump, somewhere over the two weeks at a major.
In her presser after the final, Serena seemed to understand the importance of consistency going forward, and even to imply that she hasn’t always been as confident as we might think she is. “I played so well yesterday,” she said, “I was like, Gosh, I hope I can play this way again. And I was able to do that, and I think that was really good for me, confidence-wise.” After a week of joking and crushing, she sounded a sober and realistic note. Hopefully it’s an attitude, and a confidence, that will last.
Before the future comes for Serena, two related things to note about her last two wins in Charleston: (1) We always talk, rightfully, about Serena’s serve, but her return was just as potent and important this weekend. On clay the ball sits up a fraction of a second longer for her to pummel. (2) Watching one of those pummeled returns zip past Stosur, the U.S. Open champ, I thought of the phrase that people use to describe Federer’s game—he makes it look effortless. Serena at her best takes effortlessness to another level. She makes beating the world’s best women tennis players look like child’s play.
The bending ace, the thumped return winner, the shrieking swing volley followed by a 360-degree fist-pump: With all due respect to the rest of the women’s tour, there’s something about seeing Serena winning, and at her determined best, that feels right and satisfying. The only problem is that, if you’re the Family Circle Cup’s tournament director and you wanted a competitive event, she may have done her job a little too well. She didn’t win the tournament; she devastated it.
