On the Line (29 page)

My third-round match was pivotal. I was up against Nadia Petrova, the #5 seed. As good fortune would have it, I owned a career
6-1 record against the Russian, including victories in our previous two meetings, but Petrova took the first set while I wasn’t
really paying attention. My blister was giving me some trouble, but that wasn’t it. I was also fighting off a nasty cold.
Every night, I’d stand over the stove, my face pressed down over a huge pot of boiling water. I hadn’t been tested by a player
of Petrova’s ability in a good long while, and I wasn’t exactly answering the call.

I’d talked to V before the match, and she reminded me to just look at the ball. “It’s simple,” Venus had said. “Just look
at the ball, and it’ll come, it’ll come.”

From the first point, I tried to do just what Venus said. I was looking at the ball, and looking at the ball, but it wasn’t
coming. I felt good. I felt strong, focused, whatever. But it still wasn’t coming. That was why I lost the first set. In the
second set, it still wasn’t coming. I checked the scoreboard and realized I was two points from losing the match. I kept hearing
Venus in my head telling me to just look at the ball, telling me it would come. And then, finally, it did. It’s like the skies
parted and there it was. There was this one point when I let out this unbelievable grunt. It was almost primal. You could
hear it outside the stadium, someone told me later. It was just a release, for all that pressure I was feeling from the start
of the tournament. The pressure I put on myself. The pressure from my sponsors, spoken and unspoken. The pressure from being
away from the game for all this time. And it came. Just like Venus said it would. Everything came together after that.

I was still down a set, still two points from losing the match, but I knew it was mine.

T
he funny thing is, that blister gave me trouble the rest of the way—all the way to the finals. All the way past Jelena Jankovic,
Shahar Peer, Nicole Vaidisova. Good players. Strong players. Players who certainly didn’t expect an overweight, out-of-shape,
has-been champion like me to give them a game. After each match, I’d limp into the locker room on the outer sides of my feet.
People couldn’t understand how I could walk, let alone compete against all these top players. But I hung in there. And I felt
a little better about my chances each round.

By the time Maria Sharapova turned up as my opponent in the finals, I would not be denied. I went from thinking I just wanted
to play well and get my footing, to thinking I wanted to play deep into the tournament to quiet my critics and sponsors, to
thinking I could win this thing. Absolutely, I could win this thing. My cold was finally gone. And, for the first time since
that second-round match against the qualifier, I wasn’t feeling any pain in my foot. The blister was gone, too, and the raw
baby skin at the bottom of my feet had finally had a chance to toughen up, so I was feeling like I could run all over the
court if I had to—and against the top-seeded Sharapova, I told myself, I just might have to.

But it was more than just being pain free. It was more than finding my rhythm on the court and settling in to a comfortable
groove. It was more than hearing Tracy Austin dismiss my chances on television by suggesting that I’d had a great tournament
but my ride was over. She actually came right out and said in her tournament analysis that Maria would have no problem with
me once the match got underway. I heard that and thought it was such a mean, unnecessary thing to say. After everything I’d
been through. Being called fat in the press. Being asked before every match why I was so out of shape. Being told by my sponsors
that they were going to cut me loose if I didn’t perform. Being forced to defend my time away from the game. And on and on.

But that wasn’t it. Okay, so maybe that was some of it, but not all of it. The real push came from taking all those negatives
and mashing them together into a great big positive. I put it in my head that I would not be beaten down. By my critics. By
my peers. By my sponsors. By my opponents. Together, it became my silent fuel, to power me through these next paces. I would
not be dismissed. I would dominate poor Maria Sharapova—and, indeed, that’s just how it played out, with me on top by the
convincing score of 6–1, 6–2. I would prove everyone wrong, and in so doing I would prove something to myself. That I was
back where I belonged, playing tennis at a high level, fighting for Grand Slam tournament titles, making my mark. I was determined
to win, but not for those jerks at the newspaper who called me a cow. Not for all the sportswriters who said I had no shot.
Not for the sponsors who wanted nothing to do with me. No, I would do it for me. For the first time in my career, it hit me:
that’s
why I was playing, after all.

Breathe. Remember, there are so many more important things. This is so small.

—
MATCH BOOK ENTRY

O
h. My. Goodness. Winning the Australian Open like that, coming up from such a low ranking, being counted out before the tournament
even started, dealing with all that extra weight and the negative press and the not-so-subtle pressures from my sponsors,
struggling the whole way… it was so completely awesome, to overcome all of that. I didn’t play my best tennis, not even close,
but I played well enough in each round to get to the next round, and sometimes that’s all you need, right?

Each time out, I got a little better, a little stronger, and a little more confident, so that by the final round, against
Sharapova, I was at last in high gear. I was making my shots, dictating the pace. My fitness wasn’t where I wanted it to be,
especially compared to Sharapova, who was probably in top shape, so I tried to serve a little bigger and shorten points wherever
I could. Happily, that worked out to the good. I even took the time during a couple changeovers to think,
Hey, it’s been awhile, but it’s good to be back.
And it was. Believe me, winning the whole thing was such an unexpected turn, but it wasn’t as important to me just then as
being back in the mix—and
that
, to me, was the best part of my surprising performance in Melbourne. It set me up for the next phase of my career. It was
as if I was born again as a player, like I’d put myself in position once again to compete. No, I didn’t play again for a couple
months, until Miami in April, and after beating Justine Henin in the finals there, I couldn’t get past the quarterfinals until
I got to the finals at Moscow in October, where I lost to Elena Dementieva. But I was back in the Top 10, back in the discussion.
Back in the game.

Understand, nothing came easy the whole rest of that year, but I told myself that was okay. This wasn’t just an inner pep
talk or a way to ease past a disappointment. It was really and truly okay. I knew the ultimate victory would come in the battle
itself, and that by powering through to the other side of my long layoff I would be a champion once more. I didn’t just
tell
myself these things; I believed them. This was never more apparent to me than in an impossibly difficult match against Daniela
Hantuchova of Slovakia, in the Round of 16 at Wimbledon that summer. We’d played each other six times before, and the only
time she’d ever beaten me was in 2006, in Melbourne, when I had that low, despairing moment and I
so
didn’t want to be on that court. Other than that, though, I’d handled her pretty well. She’s so tall—not quite as tall as
Venus, but she hits the ball hard, behind a big, big serve. Plus, she’s so pretty!

I’d been playing well early in the tournament that year, against some middle-of-the-pack-type players, but I was having some
trouble with my left thumb. You wouldn’t think a left thumb injury would be much of a bother to a right-handed player—but
it affected my backhand, of course. It affected my toss on serve. Also my balance and rhythm. My game felt a whole lot less
fluid to me, just because of that injury to my thumb.

There was a lot of rainfall that year, even for Wimbledon. The match was barely underway, 1–1 in the first set, when a storm
came through and we had to suspend play. They’re really quick to cover the court over there because it’s on grass, of course,
and you can’t really play through a steady drizzle the way you might on a hard surface, so these kinds of delays come with
the territory at Wimbledon. You learn to expect them, and to deal with them, and to shrug them off. But then, when we came
back, we went through the same five-minute warm-up we take before the start of each match, and by the time we were ready to
resume the skies opened up again. It was so frustrating! Not just for me, of course, but for Daniela as well. It can really
mess with your routine, when that happens back-to-back. You don’t know when or how much to eat, when or how much to drink,
when or how much to stretch. You’re all out of sorts. Before a match, there’s a whole set of paces I put myself through, and
here I had to hit restart on those paces not just once, after the first rain delay, but twice—and we didn’t even start playing
again that second time.

I tried to keep focused during the two delays, and to keep hydrating, but it was tough, not knowing when we’d get back underway.
When we finally did, I came out strong. Daniela had held her serve in the first game of the match on four straight points,
and here I answered in her second service game with four straight points of my own. I went up 0–40 with a pretty drive-volley
on an approach to the net. Daniela seemed so stunned by this sudden turnabout that she double-faulted on the next point to
give me the first break of the match.

I broke through in her next service game as well, also on a double fault, to end it, and once I had that double-break I started
to feel untouchable. It’s not that I was playing such a mighty brand of tennis, or that Daniela was struggling so mightily
on her side, but it was a combination of the two. All during those two breaks, I kept telling myself the stoppage would work
to my advantage. I kept telling myself and telling myself until finally I believed it. Of course, there’s no reason the downtime
should have worked in my favor, because we were each equally disadvantaged and inconvenienced, but I kept giving it this positive
spin.

It was here with that double-break in hand that I went on a tidy run of love service games. I didn’t give up a point in my
next three service games, and by that time I was up a set (6–2) and we were on serve at 1–2 in the second. Already, I’d put
the match in the win column—a dangerous mind game because so much can go wrong, which was what nearly happened here. I don’t
mean to come across as arrogant or full of myself, but it really felt like Daniela couldn’t stay with me that day. My serve
was working, my ground strokes were sharp, and I guess I let my head run away from me a little out there on the court.

Just then, my game started to follow. Daniela broke through to take a 3–1 lead in the second set. The turning point of the
game was a terrific passing shot by Daniela at 15–30, when I approached the net and couldn’t quite put the ball where I wanted
it on my return. With that one shot, she poked some serious holes in my confidence. It was just one shot, and it doesn’t seem
like much in the retelling, but it’s everything when you’re out on the court. Well, maybe not
everything
… but it’s meaningful, that’s for sure. I still had a commanding lead. It still felt to me like I was in control. Only now
I wasn’t so sure.

Daniela kept the pressure on with a love service game of her own to go up 4–1, finishing it off with an ace. That’s always
one of my favorite psych-out moves on the court, to end one of my service games with a big serve on our way to a changeover,
because then you get to start walking toward the umpire’s chair while your opponent is still lunging for your serve. I think
it messes with their head, to see you walking off in triumph like that while they’re still a little bit on their heels—and
here Daniela put me in just that spot. A part of me thought,
Hey, that’s my move!
But then another part thought,
Okay, Serena. She’s not going away so easily. Better get it into gear.

I held serve (love, again!), but Daniela pushed back in the very next game—the key game in the match, to that point. I thought
I’d have an opportunity to break and put the set back on serve. The first point of the game was a huge rally, and it felt
to me like I was dictating the point. I had the chance to take one of Daniela’s returns in the air and put the point away,
but I played it off the bounce instead. To this day I don’t know why, because it would have really marked this game for me,
and as it turned out this would be my last real shot for the next while, but instead the rally went back to neutral and I
ended up losing the point on an unforced error into the net. I didn’t have time to get down on myself, though, because on
the next point Daniela gave the momentum right back, when she mistimed a net cord shot and went long on her return.

Next, at 15-all, Daniela caught me with a neat touch when I was behind the baseline, and after that things seemed to bounce
back in her direction.

At 30–15, I hit the net cord again, and Daniela was barely able to flick the ball over on her approach, leaving me with the
entire court behind her, but I missed way wide with my lob. I was furious with myself, because I’d let such an easy chance
get away. Like all great players, Daniela put the game away after that, icing it with another ace as she walked off for the
changeover.

That’s where the trouble began. All day long, after the second rain delay, the winds had been kicking up pretty fierce. They
were swirling, gusting down on that court. My dress was flapping up during that whole match, like I was Marilyn Monroe standing
over an air vent. And here, perhaps as a result of those chilling winds, I started to feel like I was cramping in my left
calf. If you’re an athlete, you’ll know what I’m talking about when I say it felt like my calf muscles were about to go into
spasm. You’re on this strange precipice, where if you step the wrong way or make one wrong, sudden move, you just
know
the pain that’s waiting for you on that wrong side. I was still okay, still able to play, but I could feel it coming, and
I have to think now it had to do with the cold and the fact that those earlier layoffs had messed with my hydration in some
way. I’d timed my fluid intake for a match that should have been over hours ago, and here I was still fighting it out in these
wet, cold conditions, so maybe that explained it.