On the Line (2 page)

At some point during Venus’s first service game I reach up and notice that one of my earrings has fallen off. (Hardly a fashion
emergency, but worth noting, don’t you think?) Working with my Nike designers, I’d put together a dynamite outfit for this
tournament—a fun red dress, topped by a wide red bandana and highlighted by these giant hoop-inside-a-hoop-inside-a-hoop earrings.
I love the look, but of course that’s no edge when I’m up against my sister, who loves her look, too. I glance across the
net and see she really does look great, in one of her own designs. Black. Stunning. I think,
Okay, so that’s a push, V. All even on style points.

I reach up and touch my left ear, where those giant hoops had been. Nothing. But I leave the other earring in place, and as
I turn momentarily from the net I take time to laugh to myself and think,
Better be careful, Serena. These earrings are heavy! Don’t want to list to one side!

I turn back to the game, and it starts to feel to me like neither one of us wants to stamp this first set. It’s early, but
we’re just trading miscues. I take the next point, when Venus sits back on my return and hits it long. I take the next point,
too—on a double fault. I’m happy to have it, but I can see V is frustrated, and when she gets frustrated she usually follows
with an extra effort—and that’s just what happens here. Another monster serve that I’m fortunate to reach, but that’s about
it.

Now Venus is up 40–30, but she double-faults on the next point to put us at deuce.

Deuce. It’s such a compelling point of pause in a close game. When I’m receiving, I always think it puts me in a good position
to break; one mistake and my opponent will be backed to the wall. And yet when I’m serving, it feels to me like I’m in control.
We’re on different sides of the same stalemate, but it means different things depending on your perspective, and here my perspective
is that Venus is struggling. It’s early, I know. We’re both a little sluggish, I know. But she’s already double-faulted twice,
and kept me in a game I don’t seem to particularly want or deserve, so it’s a good time to make a move.

Venus doesn’t give me a chance: she reaches back and delivers a big serve, and then on my weak return she finds some funky
new angle to my backhand side that I don’t anticipate, passing me for another winner. Then, on her advantage, she hits another
big serve to take the game.

I think,
So much for Venus struggling.
I also think,
Can’t sit back and wait for Venus to give it up, Serena. You’ve got to take it from her. Now.

These are my marching orders to myself as I approach the baseline—but I’m still not sharp. Venus catches me leaning the wrong
way on a miss-hit, and I don’t have time to recover, so she takes the point to go up 0–15, but then another ace brings me
right back. (Love those aces!) I go up 30–15 on the next point, when Venus hits another return long, and I start to think
neither one of us will ever get it going tonight. We’re just a couple games in, but the match has no personality, no rhythm,
no excitement. We’re trading points, taking turns.

Can’t be a whole lot of fun to watch, I realize. I think this way a lot, I’m afraid. About wanting to play thrilling, high-level
tennis. About giving the fans something to cheer about. Don’t misunderstand; I want to win. That’s the single most important
thing, but I want to win in an exciting way. I love playing in front of big crowds. I love that all these people spend their
time and money watching me play. It’s such an honor, especially here in New York, where the fans have always been so supportive.
They appreciate good tennis here, and I feel a certain responsibility to give them a memorable effort, to get them on their
feet—and this match is starting out like a snore.

It’s probably not a good idea to think along these lines while I’m out here trying to win a tournament, but I can’t help myself.
Plus, I guess I’m not just worried about the fans losing interest. I’m worried about me. I’m like a lot of players in this
way; I need to be dialed in to play well. I need to be focused, charged. I can’t just go through the motions and expect to
prevail. I started out feeling all jazzed and pumped, but ten minutes later we’re just lulling ourselves to sleep. If I get
bored, I’m done, so I tell myself to power things up—also, not a good idea, because you can’t get an awesome rally going on
your racquet alone. It’s a two-way deal. There’s a give-and-take, an ebb-and-flow. Every match takes on its own personality,
and a part of me knows I just need to give this one some time to find it, but another part hurries my next couple serves and
I end up double-faulting, to even the score at 30–30.

I think,
Aw, Serena, now look what you’ve done.

I miss my next serve after that, and on my second serve Venus hits a return that I’d handle easily nine times out of ten—but
here on this tenth time (apparently), all I can do is hit it weakly back into the net to go down 30–40.

Here’s another thing I love about tennis: it switches gears on you double-quick. I don’t love it so much when it takes me
on a downshift like the one I’m nearly into here, but you’ve got to take the bad with the good, right? All of a sudden, I’m
in a hole, but I don’t get a chance to dig out: Venus catches the net on the next point, and the ball deflects onto my side
in a crazy way and I’ve got no shot, so just like that she’s got her first break. On a lucky bounce.

Lucky for V. Not so lucky for me.

During the changeover, I reach for this funny little match book I keep during every tournament. I begin a new book every year,
and I’ve kept every one of them since I’ve been on the tour. I fill each book with pointers and messages and aphorisms. Whatever
I can think might inspire me during my next match. The idea is I read it over and over before I take the court, and whenever
I feel the need I sneak a peek during changeovers. For the most part, it’s just a bunch of quotes, or reminders to capitalize
on a certain weakness in my opponent’s game, or to correct a certain weakness in my own game.

Last night, looking ahead to this match, I wrote: “Relax. Don’t hit every ball hard. Start strong. U R younger sister, so
pressure is on V. Toss high on serve. Don’t let ball drop.” I also wrote this, just before the tournament: “Your destiny has
just begun, Serena. Remember your people. I’m proud of you. Keep it up. U R capable of anything.”

There is just enough time to take in both messages and a couple sips of water before the umpire calls “Time!”—and as I set
the book back in my tennis bag and press a towel to my face, I softly speak these same words into the fabric: “You are capable
of anything, Serena.”

I stand and start to move to my side of the court. I think,
Here you go, Serena. Here you go.

U R the one with 7 Grand Slams, not her. U R
#1
. Play with a purpose. U will move forward. U will look at balls. U R the best
in the whole world. U R amazing. It’s on U, only on U.
U
R here to win, not her. Send her packing to the left, to the left.
(Beyoncé!!!) U will add spin. U will fight for every point. U will not be afraid. It is not in your vocabulary. It is not
in your nature. It is not in U, period. NO FEAR!!!

—
MATCH BOOK ENTRY

M
y first tennis memory? People always ask about it, but I’m afraid I don’t have one. I just remember playing, all the time.
It’s like tennis was always there, like going to services at Kingdom Hall. Like breathing.

I saw a picture once of Venus pushing me in a stroller on a tennis court, but I don’t actually
remember
this moment. I’ve seen pictures of me holding a racquet taken around the time I started to walk. I don’t
remember
those moments, either. I’ve heard all the stories, of course. The ones that have somehow passed into urban tennis legend,
and the ones that still get kicked around in my family. Some of them are even true.

Best anyone can recall: I was three years old. It was a Saturday afternoon, maybe Sunday. My parents took us out to the public
courts at a park in Lynwood, California, not far from where we lived. It was a total family affair. There was me, my older
sister Venus, and my mom and dad, together with our older sisters Lyndrea, Isha, and Yetunde. The older girls had been playing
for a time, while I had been trudging along, but then one day my dad announced that I was ready to take my swings, too. He
put a standard, regulation-size racquet in my hand and positioned me a couple feet from the net. Then he climbed to the other
side and started soft-tossing until I managed to hit a couple over.

“Just look at the ball, Serena,” he kept saying, in that patient tone and sweet Louisiana drawl I’d come to hear in my dreams.
“Just swing.”

Years later, he took to calling me Meeka—a variation on my middle name, Jameka. Tunde pinned that nickname on me when I was
about six and it stuck, and I used to love to hear it from my father. He still calls me Meeka, and whenever he does it puts
me in mind of how things were between us when I was little, when I was first learning to really play. Say what you will about
my dad (and folks have said an awful lot over the years), he had a gentle demeanor when he wanted to, especially when we were
just starting out. He made a game out of it, encouraging me to swing as hard as I could. Didn’t matter to him where I hit
the ball, or how I hit it, just that I hit it.

After every toss, he’d offer a word of encouragement, a point of praise:

“Good job, Serena.”

“Way to go.”

“That’s it.”

My sisters looked on and cheered and chased the balls I missed or hit to the next court. They’d been down this way before,
taking their own first hits—Venus, just a year or so before. I’d been around the court long enough to know what I was supposed
to do. It was just my turn, is all. At last. Wasn’t any kind of ceremony to it. Wasn’t really any kind of big deal, except
when I look back and see how far I’ve come—how far we’ve all come, really. My sister Isha even remembers what I was wearing:
a white tennis skirt, with gathers in the middle, decorated with pink, gray, and purple flowers; my hair braided in cornrows
and bunched in a ponytail at the top of my head. Even then, I was styling. We didn’t have money for proper tennis clothes,
but I wanted to look
good
.

I was tiny. People have a hard time believing this, considering how tall I am now. Venus was always tall for her age, but
I was way on the small side. That regulation racquet was probably bigger than I was, but we couldn’t afford a junior racquet.
Over the years, I’ve wondered if that might have put some kind of stamp on the way I played, taking my very first swings with
a racquet that was too big for me. Maybe that was the first instance of my dad setting things up so that success was something
I had to reach for. It might be there for the taking, but I would have to rise to meet it.

My parents taught themselves the game so they could teach it to us. It’s one of the first things people mention when they
talk about my career or Venus’s—and yet for some reason it’s not always seen as a positive. I don’t get that, because there’s
nothing wrong with learning about something and passing it on to your children. Yes, it was a calculated move. At some point
my dad was watching a match on television, and he couldn’t believe how much money these women were making, just for hitting
a tennis ball. He’s told the story so often it’s been burned into me. He was watching a match being played by Virginia Ruzici,
the 1978 French Open champion. The announcer mentioned that Ruzici had just earned $40,000 during one week of tournament play—more
than my dad had earned all year. It didn’t fit with how hard he worked for a living, how hard my mom worked, how hard it was
for everyone they knew to get and keep ahead. And so the story goes that my dad went out the next morning to pick up a newspaper
to confirm Ruzici’s earnings, to see for himself if tennis players could actually make so much money in such a short stretch
of time. When it turned out to be true, he came home and said to my mother, “We need to make two more kids and make them into
tennis superstars.”

At least that’s the line he used to tell reporters after Venus and I started playing on the tour. It became a real fish-out-of-water
story and a symbol of what people can do with a little vision and determination, when they reach beyond what they know for
something new.

Now, tell me: what’s wrong with
that
? Coming upon some rewarding new path your kids might follow and pointing them in the right direction? Doesn’t seem to me
there’s anything to criticize here, but people are certainly quick to criticize, don’t you think? In any case, I’m sure the
story of how my family came to tennis has been embellished over the years, but at its core that’s just what happened. And
there’s been some resentment layered onto it as well, because for whatever reason there’s this notion that if you didn’t grow
up around the game, if it wasn’t in your blood to begin with, you had no real claim on it. Tennis is like that, I’m afraid.
There’s a sense of entitlement, of belonging. Like you have to be born to it. Like you have to play it at a high level, before
you can teach it. For the longest time, it was that sense of entitlement that probably kept a whole group of potentially talented
minority and underprivileged kids from taking up the game. It must have felt to them like a sport of advantage—and I guess
it was. Indeed, I’ve always believed that sense of entitlement is reinforced by the language of the game: advantage
me
!

No, the doors to the game weren’t
really
closed on anyone, but they were essentially closed. If your parents didn’t play, there was no reason for you to play. If
no one in your community played, you’d never think to reach for a racquet in the first place. If you couldn’t afford to be
a member of some fancy country club, it might never occur to you to pick up a tennis racquet and teach yourself the game on
some public court. But my dad saw tennis as a way to open doors for his daughters, probably thinking that the more doors that
were open to us the better, so he ordered some instructional books and videos and taught himself the game. His idea was to
kind of make it up as he went along. He’d do his homework, borrow what he liked from this or that coach, and find his own
way to pass it on to his daughters.