It was not a day tailor-made for ghouls or demons; instead of angry skies veined with lightning and rumbling thunder, white galleons sailed from horizon-to-horizon, across a a field of blue. Instead of a hot wind driving furious dust devils across the lawns of Wimbledon, the lighest of breezes periodically luffed and rustled the leaves. Instead of gargoyles in Nike perched on the deck of the player restaurant, nibbling at strawberries and cream while an underdog pecked the eyes out of another champion on Court 2, the onlookers drifted in and out of somnolence. Down below, Venus and Serena Williams refused to take their place in history as the last victims on Wimbledon's notorious Graveyard of Champions, aka Court no. 2.
This is the final year for the Graveyard Court. By next year's tournament, the piece of sod that's haunted so many champions (including Venus and Serena, in recent years) will have been demolished, replaced by. . . another Wimbledon official merchandise shop, featuring George Bastl and Jill Craybas bobble-head dolls? A replica Tahitian village designed for corporate entertaining? A massage parlo - er, center, for the players? The new Court 2 stadium is already built (out in the extreme southern reach of the club, replacing the former Court 13), but it won't be ready for use until next year.
And who knows if the mythology will survive? Feeling nostalgic about that, I went out to enjoy the most compelling potential upsets on the schedule. Let's face it, the Williams sisters have appeared vulnerable more often than not for the past year or so. Would Court 2 have one more evil chortle left?
Court 2 is a wonderful place to watch tennis. The press seats are in the northeast corner of the bunker-like structure, at the intersection of the sideline and baseline, opposite the west grandstand, which looms (when full) like a moving pointillist painting. There are a handful of seats in the elevated north baseline, in the shadow of the Millenium building - a fine, airy piece of architecture that looks festive, like a cruise ship. The upper deck is the semi-open player restaurant and observation deck from which anyone with a strong stomach can look almost straight down at the proceedings Court 2. The south wall is little more than a windscreen, beyond which you can see St. Mary's church and the high ground of Wimbledon village.Unfortunately, the pastoral vista is spoiled by the slender, towering crane - it's hinged at the center, like a giant switchblade - from which broadcasters generate their dramatic overhead shots of the club.
Venus was on first, facing Alisa Kleybanova, a pale Russian lass who doesn't appear to have missed many meals lately. In fact, I was trying to figure out the endorsement patch above her right breast, and for a long time I was (wrongly) convinced it said, "Haagen-Dazs." She presented a substantial contrast to Venus, but then who wouldn't? Venus probably cuts the most elegant figure of any woman at Wimbledon. The combination of dark skin and a white dress against a lime-green background is striking; it makes Venus look larger than life, and ideally suited to the activity at hand. The dress, by the way, was a classic. Imagine that, a woman playing tennis in a. . . tennis dress! By contrast, Maria Sharapova looked like a car-hop girl in that faux-designer gear she was running around in earlier in the event.
Kleybanova fought gamely for the first seven games, but she played a terrible service game and was broken for 3-5. Venus held comfortably to win the set. I was sitting two rows closer to the action than Venus and Serena's mother, Oracene, but close enough to hear her gentle, steady stream of encouragements: Come on, V, stay tough!. . . Hang in there. . . Shake it off. . . Take your time. . .One at a time. . . I had to smile; Oracene was just going through the motions, like a good mom telling a child in the car seat: We're almost there. . . Do you need to pee?. . . Want some more goldfish?. . .Take that screwdriver out of your mouth, please. . .
Venus quickly jumped out to a 5-1 lead in the second set, but then the ghosts of the Graveyard Court got up to a little mischief. Venus lost her game, Kleybanova found hers. She battled back to 4-5, and had Venus on the ropes in the next game. But she failed to convert three break points and Venus closed it out. From my intimate vantage point, I developed a higher appreciation of Venus's serve.
Comparisons between men's and women's tennis often leads to bad places; it seems wiser to look at each game through a different lens. But one thing that struck me was the utter fluidity and power of Williams's serve, that being the shot in which the differences between the genders is most pronounced. In her hands "you throw like a girl" becomes "you serve like a man. . ." But I also found myself wishing that Venus attacked more frequently; a general antipathy to the net is the only flaw in her game on this surface. Fittingly, she ended the match with an all too rare approach shot-volley combination.
Serena was up next, against Bethanie Mattek, a bouncy, 5-6 blonde who had no compunctions about going right after the favorite. One of the more interesting things about the Williams sisters is how differently they play; how can two girls trained by the same father/coach wind up with such dissimilar games? After dispatching Mattek, 6-3,6-3, Serena was asked to evaluate how she stacked up against Venus, and she replied: "I think the differences. . . I play more trick shots and dropshots and stuff like that. I don't hit as hard as V. Sometimes I'm watching her practice and I start thinking, 'Okay, I can play that game.' But I feel like my game is totally different than hers."
