In my last post I stated that 2009 was a good year for tennis matches. Unfortunately, I realize now that I need to revise that assertion: It was a good year for men’s tennis matches. From a competitive standpoint, the women disappointed. Dinara Safina came up lame in both the Aussie and French finals, the Williams sisters gave us a briefly compelling but ultimately unmemorable Wimbledon final, and Caroline Wozniacki couldn’t quite make herself into a threat to Kim Clijsters at the U.S. Open.
That leaves us with just one WTA match that combined the requisite drama and excellence to qualify as a classic: the Wimbledon semifinal between Serena Williams and Elena Dementieva, won by Williams 6-7 (4), 7-5, 8-6. Above are a pair of highlight clips that cover much of the second and third sets. I apologize for the irritatingly excitable announcers—NBC pulled all the videos of its broadcast. But there’s no way to ruin this one. The tension builds right to the final point.
—I normally think of Serena as being a fierce competitor rather than an elegant one. Maybe it’s the traditional clothes or the Wimbledon setting, but from the start her strokes and movement seem smoother and more polished. Her extension through her forehand in the first few rallies shown is exemplary. She also seems to be hitting it with more topspin than usual, and with a concerted effort to pin Dementieva deep in the court. You can see that Serena is in a no-nonsense mood.
—Dementieva is counterpunching for the most part. Her game has always seemed to me to be the tennis equivalent of a blind person who has, in order to survive, developed her other senses to their maximum. Dementieva’s blind spot—her serve—has forced her to become just a shade quicker along the baseline, make her strokes a little more compact, and tighten up her reaction time. She’s had to deal with fending off big returns her whole career, which helps her come in prepared for Serena’s rockets. Sometimes Dementieva looks more like a hockey goalie out there than a tennis player.
—Hawkeye was cruel to the Russian in this match. The machine made two calls against her by the barest of margins.
—There are few Hall-of-Famers who are as willing as Serena Williams to do anything to stay in a point the way she is. If she’s pushed to her right, she’s not embarrassed to go to the hack slice forehand and pop it straight up in the air, if that’s what it takes to get the ball over the net.
—Dementieva certainly had her chances. She blew an open-court backhand in the last game of the second set that I believe would have gotten her to a tiebreaker. But the most telling moment for me comes when she goes up a break in the third, 3-1. Immediately, she drills two very makeable forehands into the net. Dementieva likes pace; the more time she has, the nervous she can get, especially in this situation against Serena. Also, does Dementieva not move forward that well? On one point she's unable to take advantage of a weak Williams return because she can’t get there in time.
—Dementieva has match point at 5-4 in the third. Serena hits a mediocre serve and Dementieva hits a solid backhand return. You think it will be a typical rally, but Serena decides to take the initiative right away. She doesn’t do anything spectacular, but she does force Dementieva to come up with a backhand pass. The Russian mistakenly chooses to go crosscourt, where Serena is waiting. Fortune in tennis still favors the brave. And the good.
—This match reaches its peak with Serena serving at 5-6 in the third. There's lots of desperate hitting and desperate emotion: Dementieva is left down for the count after one point, and Serena gets right in her face on another. Most crucial, Serena hits two aces to rescue herself. In the next game, her ground strokes land on the baseline multiple times, including twice on the final point. Not surprisingly, she breaks serve. Fortune favors the brave, the good, and the fortunate.
—For such a tense match, it ends in an odd way. You rarely see a player miss the last ball of a tight contest by going for winner and sending the ball wide. It’s easier to gauge the sideline and find the right margin for error than it is to gauge the baseline or the net—with the match on the line, why aim so close to the sideline? But Dementieva does just that and strokes the last ball wide. It's almost as if part of her has decided that destiny is against her on this day, at this event, against this opponent.
—With Dementieva serving as well as she ever has, there was almost nothing to separate these two players. Every set was close, every game hard fought. Why did Serena win? There’s her serve, of course, and her power, and her speed. But what comes to my mind is the way she reacts to her missed shots, as compared to the way her opponent reacts.
Serena can’t believe she can miss. She can’t believe she can lose. Dementieva, as much as the thought upsets her, can.