As serene as Serena — queen of the court… ‘flushing’ her way to retirement in style

Rolling back the years

Give it up for the comeback “Queen of the Courts”. It’s not everyday one sees an offset like this — number 605 taking out number 2? Now that’s something isn’t it? Here’s how The Guardian summed it up in the wee hours of today.

Serena Williams is improbably through to the third round of the US Open after a 7–6 (4), 2–6, 6–2 win over the second-seeded Anett Kontaveit on Wednesday night, extending what she’s strongly hinted will be the final event of her storied career for at least two more days.

The 23-time major singles champion, who entered the tournament ranked 605th with only one match win in 450 days, won a tense opening set in a tiebreaker before Kontaveit, the world #2 from Estonia…

Serena turns 41 this month and she’s not exiting the stage without fanfare. Here’s what she had to say after having won 23 of her past 25 matches against opponents ranked in the top two including eight in a row …“It’s no rush here…” And again:

“I’m loving this crowd. There’s still a little left in me. We’ll see. I’m a pretty good player, this is what I do best. I love a challenge and I’m rising to the challenge.”

Some historical context from my layman’s view

Revisiting my 2016 article “Ms Williams… Ms Williams — Take 2 on Sibling Rivalry?” I pointed out that of all the sibling rivalries in sports, “no one is quite as captivating as the Williams sisters (Serena and Venus) in women’s tennis…”

Between them, the Williams sisters have twenty-eight Grand Slam titles — Venus (a seven-time Grand Slam title winner, singles), and Serena (twenty-one-time Grand Slam title winner, singles). They have also been both home trained — coached from an early age by their parents Richard Williams and Oracene Price.

Report also shows that there is a noted professional rivalry between them — for example: (1) between the 2001 US Open and the 2009 Wimbledon tournaments, the sisters had met in eight Grand Slam singles finals; (2) between 2000 and 2010, an 11-year span, they collectively won an astonishing 9 Wimbledon singles titles (Venus won 5 & Serena won 4).

By winning the 2010 Australian Open women’s doubles title, the Williams sisters became the 5th pair to complete the Career Doubles Grand Slam and the only pair to complete the Career Doubles Golden Slam. At the time, Venus and Serena were only 20 and 19 years old, respectively.

Nearly a decade later, the duo would go on to win 4 consecutive grand slam doubles titles from 2009 Wimbledon through 2010 Roland Garros.

Rivalry? You tell me, as reports seem to suggest otherwise:

They remain very close, often watching each other’s matches in support, even after one of them has been knocked out of a tournament.

Both sisters have been ranked by the Women’s Tennis Association at the World №1 position. In 2002, after the French Open, Venus and Serena were ranked №1 and №2, respectively, marking the first time in history that sisters occupied the top two singles spots in the world rankings.

At a recent French Open a USA TODAY article described the duo as having taken care of Business, as well as having given fans a rare treat (USA TODAY, 2016, May 26).

Did they pass by one another in the hallway between matches? Serena’s answer says it all — “Yeah.”

Serena overcame a first-set blip to reach Wimbledon’s last eight with a straight-sets win over Svetlana Kuznetsova. Williams defeated the Russian 7–5 6–0 to set up a quarter-final tie with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova — whom she beat 6–4, 6–4 earlier today.

Now to an interesting pressure pot — no rest for the wicked (as the saying goes). But Serena takes it in good stride with the following comment:

“In order to win a tournament you usually have to play quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals back-to-back…”

Now this did it for me, and for good measure (see Hill, 2016):

The sisters have faced each other in four previous Wimbledon finals, with Serena winning three times, in 2002, 2003 and 2009, and Venus triumphing in 2008. The prospect of a fifth encounter between not only the two oldest females left here but also the only American ones after a generally bad Independence Day for those from the other side of the Atlantic, was something Serena declined to discuss after victory over Kuznetsova. There was plenty of praise for Venus, however, with the 34-year-old describing her elder sister as “my toughest opponent”.

So what’s the morale of this (His)story?

The siblings aren’t getting any younger, as they are fast approaching the big 4–0 (forty), what’s the “exit strategy” from the courts and grandslams?

Sources

BBC Sport (2016, July 4) Wimbledon 2016: Serena Williams beats Svetlana Kuznetsova.

The Guardian Sports (2016, July 5) Serena Williams beats Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova: Wimbledon 2016 — as it happened.

Madichie, N. (2013, November 13), Co-Preneurship & Sibling Rivalry in Family Business Research: Building or Stumbling Block?

USA TODAY (2016, May 26) Williams sisters take care of business, advance at French Open. Special for USA TODAY Sports.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.