On the Line (34 page)

XXX, S

Thursday, September 4, 2008

OMG!!! What a match! It was crazy. I was down the whole time! Ten set points against me and I still managed to win. Ran down
everything and it was so worth it because I’m so happy to be in the semis. I haven’t been in the semis here since 2002, and
I won that year, so hopefully that’s a good omen! The match before ours went really late and we had the night session, so
we were hanging out almost 2 hours trying to get ready. Supposed to play at 7 but we didn’t end up going on until around 9!
Waiting upstairs in the gym. Getting my wrist taped, warming up, waiting for the match to end. Venus came in while I was warming
up. We started talking and laughing. Good to know that through all of it I have my sister, who means the world to me.

We played each other so hard, and I won, and I’m so happy. I really want to win a Grand Slam tournament this year, but just
where I’m at I feel blessed and honored to have this opportunity to have a sister be in this sport with me. To be so close.
I had fun out there yesterday. Felt like I was watching a really good movie—with me in it!!! A little sore today, though.
Didn’t get home until after midnight last night, but already heading out for my 9 a.m. practice. I’m not letting anything
stop me from winning this tournament. Gotta go so I can be on time! TTYL

XXX, S

Friday, September 5, 2008

Semi-finals! I’m ready. I play Dinara Safina, who’s been having a great year. (Another little sister!) I’m really excited.
I feel a little pressure. I played so well the other day against Venus, and I know she would beat Dinara, so… now I HAVE to
beat her. Don’t want to let Venus down. It’s like if I was going to lose, I should have let Venus win. One way to think of
it. Don’t know why I’m stressing about Dinara… maybe because I’m in the semis, and it’s a big deal. I have an afternoon match,
so I’m going to get up and go practice! TTYL

XXX, S

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Been raining all morning. Sitting in my hotel room all day. Going to get some treatment on my shoulder, so I’m ready. Gotta
get focused. I’ve got to watch my Superman episodes, since I’m superstitious. Roger plays first, and I’m rooting for him to
win! We’ve been hanging out all week. Don’t know how I’m going to play today because they have all these matches to get in.
Hopefully I’ll be able to play. I don’t want to play the finals on Sunday, because I have that Calvin Klein party. And that
dress! I get to keep it if I go to the party, so I’m desperate to play tonight. Desperate to win the U.S. Open tonight…

MORE LATER…

Still raining!!! It’s 4 p.m. and no one has played. Actually, that’s not true. Roger played a little, but they couldn’t finish
it, and Murray was playing Nadal, in the other semi, but they had to switch courts! They put the #1 player on the grandstand
court, because of all the rain. I’m still shocked to think I’ll be #1 if I win this tournament. I came into the U.S. Open
thinking I want to win a Grand Slam tournament, but now if I win my match I’ll be #1! It’s crazy: five girls with a chance,
and I’m one of them. I looked up and was like, What? Me? I had no idea I was even that close. I just play, and try to win
everything. But it’s raining, pouring, and my agent Jill told me they might cancel, so I don’t know what to do…

MORE LATER…

STILL raining… It’s 6:30 and they canceled my match! Can you believe? Won’t be able to be a champion today. Going to have
to wait ’til tomorrow, and I’m going to have to miss the Calvin Klein party because the final will be tomorrow night. I’m
really upset. Going to go practice. Going to hit indoors. I have to be focused. I have to stay. I have to do this! This is
big! I want to do this!!

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Here we go! No rain this morning, after rain all day yesterday. It sucks because the men’s final has to be played on Monday.
Don’t know if they’ve ever done that at the U.S. Open. We’re playing tonight at 9 p.m. That’s so late, but it’s cool because
it’s primetime, baby!!! I’m so pumped. Worked so hard playing indoors last night. I practiced in Harlem at this great tennis
facility, and I was drenched from head to toe. I was running so much. I’m so determined to do so well. That way, I have no
excuses if I don’t win. If I don’t win, it won’t be because I didn’t put in the hard work! I can do this!!

XXX, S

Monday, September 8, 2008

It’s over!!! (Sighs of big relief!!!) I won, I won, I won. I’m so excited. I’m the U.S. Open Champion. I’m so happy! I feel
so blessed. It’s so amazing. I can’t even describe. Got home last night from the match at 2 a.m. Couldn’t sleep because I
was so excited! Couldn’t do anything but crash in my bed! This is the best feeling. Now I’m a winner of 9 Grand Slam tournament
titles. (WOW!!!) Growing up, I wanted to win so many tournaments. Growing up, it was so surreal to have an opportunity to
do this, and I’ve done it! Thank God. Thank Jehovah God! Thank you, Dad. Thank you, Mom. Thank you, Venus. Thank you, Isha.
Thank you, Lyndrea. Thank you, Yetunde. We did it! I’m so happy. And tired! OMG, I’m so tired. As happy as I am, I’m going
to go to sleep now, because I’m so tired.

Looking forward to the Australian Open. LOL…

XXX, S

Hold serve, hold serve, hold serve. Focus, focus, focus. Be confident, be confident, be confident. Hold serve. Hold, hold,
hold. Move up. Attack. Kill. Smile. Hold!!!

—
MATCH BOOK ENTRY

S
o there you have it. For now. There you have
me
, for now. A piece of my heart, at a particular moment in time. But underneath all that comes a caution: everything you’ve
just read is subject to change. Well, maybe not everything. The facts of my life—the
who
,
what
,
when,
and
where—
are all set. But every opinion, every emotion, every insight that flows from those facts—the
how
and
why—
is still on the table.

When I set out to write this book, I never intended it to be a full-on, straight-up memoir. I’m not ready to pack it in and
call it a career, and at twenty-seven I’m way too young to even think about looking over my shoulder to write a traditional
autobiography. I’m not done yet! I can tell you how it’s going. I can tell you how it’s gone. But I can’t tell you where I’m
headed. I can’t know how the story of my life will turn out. Heck, I don’t want to know.

And so the stories I’ve cherry-picked from my life and career are the ones that stand now as inspiring, motivating, illustrative.
These are the memories that give me shape as I pass these pages for publication. These are the touchstone moments and the
formative influences that have helped to make me the person I am, the player I am, as well as the person and player I might
become. Ask me in ten years to reflect on my childhood and my coming of age on the tennis court and I might reach for a different
batch. Or, maybe I’ll reconsider some of these same memories but in an entirely new way, as my perspective continues to shift.
Ask me in twenty, and yet another batch might rise to the surface. It’s like one of those connect-the-dots drawings I used
to do when I was a kid. Link these stories together and they form the picture I carry of myself in my mind at just this moment;
but tomorrow I might see myself a little differently. Make no mistake, each one of these moments has given me shape. But drop
one from the picture and I’d look a whole lot different. Drop a couple and you wouldn’t recognize me at all.

I’m a work in progress, just like everyone else. What moves me one day might not move me the next. What helped to shape me
as a child might not make a dent in my thinking now. It’s all relative. And yet, when you’ve done the bulk of your growing
up in the public eye, as I have done, people seem to want to know a little bit more about you than you might understand about
yourself. That’s part of the territory, I realize, and I’m happy to explore that in what ways I can.

One of the questions I’m asked all the time by reporters and fans is how I want to be remembered at the end of my tennis career,
and I can never come up with a satisfying answer. Honestly, I’m not even sure I want to be remembered as a tennis player.
When my body tells me it’s time to stop chasing and smashing tennis balls for a living, I’ll go on and do something else,
you can be sure, and maybe it’ll be the something else that helps me leave my true mark. Maybe tennis is just a way for me
to get from where I was to where I’m going.

And yet the question keeps coming—more and more, as I continue to play and start to threaten or establish some of the all-time
records in the women’s game: how do I want to be remembered, after all?

I’ll just have to get back to you on that one.