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A Hours after Serena Williams walked out of Rod Laver Arena, beaten again at the end of a Grand Slam tournament, the Eurosport team had converged in front of the cameras to discuss the game of the day. There was Barbara Schett, last active 15 years ago, who played three times against Williams, and by video link, former Williams rival, Justine Henin, who retired to Melbourne 10 years ago. Henin is a year younger than Williams, now a mother of two, and when asked if she sees herself competing like Williams again, her response was simple: “No way, no luck.”
As Williams competes with players like Naomi Osaka, it’s easy to forget that her true contemporaries are women like Schett and Henin. Almost all of them have been retired for a long time, leading busy lives, enjoying the fruits of their labor on the court in peace. Meanwhile, Williams just made her 77th Grand Slam tournament, placing her second on the all-time list to her sister, Venus, who played her 88th last week.
Such longevity is clearly no consolation for Williams. The last image of her at the tournament was of her abruptly leaving her press conference in tears. There are already discussions about her future, the precise meaning of her wave when she left court, but she also has every right to be frustrated with the way things continue to play out. Since returning from pregnancy, she has consistently put herself in a position to win. When her performances in the four Grand Slam finals weren’t enough, she left and worked harder.
Over the past month in Australia, Williams has performed better than at any time in the past four years. While opponents such as Simona Halep immediately pointed out the difference between yesterday and today, she was also clearly happy and hopeful about her progress. Asked before her semi-final when she last moved as well as she is, she replied, “It’s definitely been a minute. It was a long minute, ”she said. “I think 19… 1926, summer 1926, I think that was the last time I felt that.
Yet none of this worked. Williams’ biggest problem isn’t her game, but how she came to lose the killer instinct that had defined her for so long. Consider some of her exploits on Rod Laver Arena alone: In 2003, she recovered from 2-5 against Kim Clijsters to win her Serena Slam. In the 2005 semi-final, she saved three match points in the semi-final to beat Maria Sharapova. Two years later, she won it all, finishing 81st. In 2017, she was pregnant and easily tired, so she saved energy by beating everyone in sets.
In 2015, Williams’ Grand Slam final record was 21-4. She was the closest. His ability to excel in the toughest times was so common that it was easy for people to forget how difficult it was to win even one title. Now we know. Since Williams fell to Roberta Vinci at the 2015 US Open while chasing the Grand Slam, her major final record is 2-6, and she has lost more semi-finals (4) since then than in the rest of his career.
She has reached the part of her career where the experience can be detrimental. She knows too much: She understands exactly what it means to win a Grand Slam title, that it will all be over soon, and that every failure is a wasted opportunity. Winning is so difficult under these circumstances.
Meanwhile, Osaka represents a part of the freedom and courage she has lost. She initially refused to make a single unforced error in the final 22 points of her fourth-round comeback against Garbiñe Muguruza after a 3-5 15-40 deficit, then responded to the service loss with three doubles fouls for 6-3 4-4 against Williams in winning the last eight points and the game. Now she is chasing a 4-0 record in the Grand Slam final.
It remains to be seen if Williams will be able to play freely enough to even claim his 24th Grand Slam title. Whether or not she does it, instead of a failure, this period is more of the context for what it really took to achieve all that she has.
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