On the Line (10 page)

That should have been the end of it, but it wasn’t. The tournament officials kept dragging their feet, until finally I had
to go and get dressed and warmed up. The clock was against us. I had to treat it like any other match, against any other opponent,
and underneath these preparations we were just waiting and waiting. I went out and did my usual prematch warm-up. I stretched.
I started to hit and tried to find my rhythm. My father came down to the court to watch. Not to talk about Venus, but to watch
me hit. I was just working on my game. I hit some forehands crosscourt. I hit some backhands crosscourt. I hit some serves,
some volleys, and then I was done. After that, I usually talked to my dad about strategy, but when I’m playing Venus he just
says, “Have fun.” That’s the strategy. As far as I know, he says the flip side of the same thing to V. And that was all he
said that morning. Just “Have fun.”

Venus came up to me in the locker room after my warm-up and said, “I really don’t know why they’re not making some kind of
announcement. I told them I couldn’t play two hours ago.”

I look back now and think maybe I should have said something, done something. But I was even younger and less established
than Venus. It didn’t even occur to me at first to step in, and then when it finally did I didn’t see that there was anything
I could do. I mean, I was just a kid. I didn’t think I had the juice to make any kind of stand for Venus, and even if I did
my situation was complicated because I was also her opponent. I couldn’t really argue with the officials that my opponent
should be allowed to withdraw.

For the moment, everyone was moving around like the match was still on. The fans had all filed in, expecting to see the Williams
sisters in this great semifinal showdown. All the VIP types, the sponsors and benefactors were on hand. There was no public
indication that Venus might be sidelined until about five minutes before the match was scheduled to begin, when a tournament
spokesperson finally got on the loudspeaker and announced to the packed stadium that Venus was withdrawing due to injury.

Well, the place went nuts—and not in a good way. The fans were angry, which I can certainly understand now, considering how
things were handled. I would have been mad, too, if I’d paid my money and gone to all the hassle and hustle of getting to
the stadium. Understand, all these people had planned their day around this match. They’d looked forward to it. The television
people sold a lot of advertising for it. The sponsors were all lined up. But what I couldn’t understand was why the anger
was directed at us. It wasn’t Venus’s fault she was injured. It wasn’t my dad’s fault. And it certainly wasn’t my fault. It
was just one of those things. Venus tried to pull out in a timely fashion. She did everything by the WTA book. But the late
scratch let people think there was some grandstanding going on, or that the Williams sisters had somehow held the tournament
hostage to our own way of doing things.

Here again, I thought back to that quote from Dr. King, because of course there was no way to answer these claims.
Truth pressed to the earth will rise again
. That didn’t really help us just yet. The whispered charges against us didn’t really deserve an answer, but there they were.
The tournament officials didn’t really do anything to discourage people from this view. They certainly didn’t want to take
the heat for how things went down—and believe me, there was a ton of heat. I learned later there was even a rumor that my
dad was behind all this, that he was manipulating the situation to decide which of his daughters would play in the finals.
All of these ridiculous lies were being said about us, all because some bullheaded tournament official was determined to give
the fans and the sponsors and the broadcasters what they wanted instead of giving the players the respect they deserved.

It got nasty when they made the announcement, but after that I thought the incident would pass and I could concentrate on
the final. Man, was I wrong! We had to do a press conference right after the match was canceled, and there were questions
suggesting that we sisters had somehow manipulated this situation to our advantage. I sat there and thought, What advantage?
What did either one of us gain by any of this? In fact, the walkover actually cost me points in the rankings, because if Venus
had actually tried to play for a couple games before withdrawing those points would have come my way. But still, we had to
answer for it publicly. On the tour, they’re always sticking a microphone in your face. Before a match. Right after a match.
And, apparently, right after a late scratch, so we had to go out into the press room they had set up at the stadium and do
a little dance and put a positive spin on the situation.

I said, “I don’t know why everyone is blaming Venus. She told them as soon as she arrived that she couldn’t play. Ask the
trainer. She’ll tell you.”

Of course, nobody asked the trainer. Nobody looked at what actually happened. People were only too happy to cast us as scapegoats,
when really we were just victims of a stupid system and an abuse of authority. People were pissed and disappointed and they
took it out on us. No question, it should have been handled differently, and now here we were at the other end, getting ripped
for something that was out of our control. Venus caught the brunt of it, but some of it fell to me. My dad caught a bunch
of it, too. I could almost understand why people were upset with Venus, especially if they didn’t know what happened, because
she was the one who withdrew from the tournament. But I couldn’t get why folks were mad at me.

I still had a lot to learn, I guess.

D
espite all the noise and controversy, I thought things would return to normal soon enough, so I tried to focus on the finals.
I was going up against Kim Clijsters, a strong young Belgian player who was just coming onto the scene and doing well. The
year before, she was named as the WTA Newcomer of the Year, so there was a lot of excitement about this matchup. She was only
seventeen, and I was nineteen, so it was a real sign that the women’s game was getting younger and fitter and more energetic.

Plus, Kim had been having a great tournament. That always adds a whole other level of anticipation to a match. She’d just
beaten the number one player in the world, Martina Hingis, in an exciting semifinal match, and she’d knocked off an up-and-coming
Justine Henin, her countrywoman, in one of the early rounds. I guess it seems kind of obvious to say someone who reaches the
finals in any tournament is having a great run—but that’s not always the case. When you’re an underdog and you manage to beat
a couple top players along the way, it puts you on a roll going into the finals. You start to think it’s your destiny to win
the whole thing, and it’s tough to compete against that kind of mind-set.

I talked to Venus about Kim’s game. Venus was always my first and best read on an opponent. She had a good head for tracking
a player’s strengths and weaknesses. She paid attention to that kind of thing. Me, I tended to just go out there and play
my game. My thinking was: as long as I’m on, no one can beat me. Let the other girl worry about
my
strengths and weaknesses. I didn’t care if you had a killer serve, or an aggressive ground game, or a vicious drop shot.
As a matter of fact, if your forehand was your strength, I’d go to that side all the time, to show you I could beat you on
your best shots. I would make you change your game to counter mine.
I
would overpower
you
. That was always my basic plan of attack—still is, by the way—but it didn’t hurt to get my big sister’s input on a new opponent.
So we talked about the matchup and how I wanted to approach it, and all this time it never occurred to either of us that there
would be any fallout from Venus’s injury.

Here, I drew strength from my previous matches against Kim. I’d beaten her in the 1999 U.S. Open and here at Indian Wells
in 2000. I was seeded #7 in the tournament to her #14. She was certainly solid, but I had a bigger serve and a lot more power.
This was her first Tier I final, whereas I’d made it this far a bunch of times, so experience was on my side as well.

(A Tier I event, by the way, is a premier-level tournament that is considered just a notch below the majors in terms of importance;
there are Tier II, III, and IV events, too, and the draws tend to get a little weaker, and the prize money and ranking points
a little stingier, as you drop down.)

By every prematch measure, I thought I had an edge—and yet there was one all-important measure that would go against me: the
crowd.

I stepped onto the court a couple minutes before Kim, and right away people started booing. They were loud, mean, aggressive…
pissed! It was one of those tournaments where they give you a bouquet of flowers when you go out to warm up before the finals,
and for some reason that struck me as so absurd at just that moment. Me, walking onto the court with a bouquet of flowers
while everyone booed. It’s like one of those “What’s wrong with this picture?” scenes. It didn’t fit. What got me most of
all was that it wasn’t just a scattered bunch of boos. It wasn’t coming from just one section. It was like the whole crowd
got together and decided to boo all at once. The ugliness was just raining down on me, hard. I didn’t know what to do. Nothing
like this had ever happened to me.

What was most surprising about this uproar was the fact that tennis fans are typically a well-mannered bunch. They’re respectful.
They sit still. And in Palm Springs, especially, they tended to be pretty well-heeled, too. But I looked up and all I could
see was a sea of rich people—mostly older, mostly white—standing and booing lustily, like some kind of genteel lynch mob.
I don’t mean to use such inflammatory language to describe the scene, but that’s really how it seemed from where I was down
on the court. Like these people were gonna come looking for me after the match.

At first I thought maybe there was something else going on, some piece of news that had flashed on the scoreboard that had
gotten them all upset…
something
to explain the jeering. But then I realized it was meant for me. By this point, Kim was out there on the court as well, with
her own bouquet, and she got a big cheer before everyone set their sights once again on me.

There was no mistaking that all of this was meant for me. I heard the word
nigger
a couple times, and I knew. I couldn’t believe it. That’s just not something you hear in polite society, but I was a long
way from polite society on that stadium court. I didn’t make the connection to Venus’s injury just yet, but it was clear I
was the target. And then, just to reinforce how angry these people were at me, when Kim started in with her warm-ups, the
crowd stood and cheered for her all over again. Everything she did, they cheered. Everything I did, they booed. It was freaky.
And cruel. I’d played in matches before when the crowd was against me and pulling for my opponent for whatever reason, but
this was so far off the map of my experience I didn’t know what to do.

I tried to block it out and prepare for my match, but it’s tough to ignore fourteen thousand screaming people—especially when
they’re screaming at
you
! It’s tough to tune out such ugliness and venom. And it got worse. The fans quieted for Kim’s introduction and then gave
her a standing ovation. Then they introduced me and the booing kicked up another couple notches.

I wanted to cry, but I didn’t want to give these people the satisfaction, or let them know they could get to me.

Just before the start of play, my dad and Venus started walking down the aisle to the players’ box by the side of the court,
and everybody turned and started to point and boo at them. At Indian Wells, it’s such a long, long walk down the stairs to
the players’ box that I thought they’d never get there, underneath all this booing. It was mostly just a chorus of boos, but
I could still hear shouts of “Nigger!” here and there. I even heard one angry voice telling us to go back to Compton. It was
unbelievable.

That’s when it finally came to me that this was connected to what happened in that semifinal scratch. I should have made the
connection sooner, because it was so transparent, but I was rattled. Remember, I was just a kid. What did I know? But now
it was clear even to me that these people were angry at Venus and my dad, and that I was somehow caught up in it. I suppose
I knew this all along, on some level, but it took watching my father and sister run the gauntlet to their seats, while all
around people were shouting at them and pointing at them for me to figure out what was really going on.

Daddy didn’t help matters, I’m afraid. When he got to his seat, he turned around and pumped his fist in the air, in a gesture
of defiance. I’m sure he meant to send a clear message that he and his family would not be beaten down by something like this.
Perhaps he wanted to call to mind that famous black power protest from the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, when two American athletes
pumped their fists from the medal stand during the anthem. But whatever his intent, the gesture had the unintended effect
of inciting the crowd even more.

My first thought as I took all of this in was for V. I was okay when I thought all this nastiness was meant for me, but once
I saw it was directed at my family I got my back up. It set me off. I’m extremely protective of my family, and I hated that
Venus had to deal with something like this, after what she’d already had to deal with leading up to our semifinal. She looked
great, and I could see she was trying to put on a brave face behind her sunglasses, but I could see that deep down she was
hurt by the negative reaction. Truth be told, I don’t think any of us knew quite how to handle it, but I had a match to play
so I had to do more than just handle it. I had to overcome it. I had to move on.

Now, I don’t want to misrepresent the situation, because this incident got a lot of attention in the tennis press. You can
dig up videotape on it if you look hard enough. I know I’ve got a tape of the match somewhere at home, but I can’t watch it
because it brings back too many painful memories. And so, to be completely objective about it, I shouldn’t state that every
single fan in that stadium was yelling at me and my family. That’s probably not accurate. I’d say there were about a hundred
or so people shouting out encouragement, and maybe another hundred or so not saying anything. That seems about right. For
every ninety-eight people yelling at me, there was maybe one person on my side and another person just keeping quiet.