On the Line (7 page)

I promised myself I’d never forget that article, that one day I’d prove the reporter wrong. It was such a cruel thing to say,
but I turned it into some more of that silent fuel. I filed it away for later. Everyone took it as such a big positive for
Venus, and for all of us, and for the most part it was just that. With all the excitement in our house when it came out, I
thought we’d be off on another one of Daddy’s paper-grabs. There’s no denying that it put us on the tennis map.
All
of us. But Tunde read between the lines and saw what I saw. She felt what I felt. As the oldest, she was the furthest removed
from my runt-of-the-litter perspective, but she understood. She took me aside and said, “Don’t pay any attention to that article,
Serena. You’ll have your day. You’ll have your time. And it’s gonna be even bigger.”

I never forgot that. Filed that away, too.

Growing up on those tennis courts in Compton and Lynwood and all over Los Angeles, it sometimes felt like nobody believed
in me. I suppose I understood it on some level. Clearly, Venus was the phenom, the prodigy, the rising star. But on another
level it hurt. Even my dad, who’s always been my biggest supporter, was spending more time with Venus, more time on her game,
more time talking to reporters and coaches about her. The more he talked to people about us, the more he took us out to these
events, the more connections he made in the game, the more it became about Venus.

She was the main attraction. I
get
that now. I
get
that Venus deserved all that extra tennis attention. I
get
that you can raise only one champion—until you look up one day and realize you’ve raised two.

My parents believed in me, in their own way. Absolutely, my mom believed in me. Wholeheartedly. That’s a great word for how
she felt about her girls. She believed in all of us, with all her heart, and she had each of us believing in ourselves and
in each other as well. We could do anything we wanted, be anything we wanted, accomplish anything we wanted. She had this
great way of isolating each of us and making us feel special. Didn’t have to be about tennis. It could be about school, or
dance, or gymnastics, or the way we’d decided to wear our hair. She singled us out and allowed us to shine.

It wasn’t just my parents who believed in me. Venus knew I could play, too. Even when we were kids, she knew I could play.
She didn’t understand why she was getting all the attention. She used to tell me I was a clever player, but I think that was
her way of putting a positive spin on my game. I was good, but I was more of a counterpuncher. I wasn’t strong, like Venus.
I wasn’t an intimidating presence, like Venus. I didn’t have a superaggressive game. I eventually found one when I got a little
taller and stronger, but when we were little I was all about lobs and really, really long baseline rallies, and doing whatever
I could to break my opponent.

Venus never held it over me, that her game was bigger and better; she didn’t rub my face in it. She had such a good, kind
heart. (She still does!) She was always so positive and generous and accommodating. She just told me to work hard and to play
my game. “The rest will come,” she used to say. “Your time will come.”

As I got older, I started sleeping more and more in Venus’s bed. Even when Tunde moved out of the house and there was a bunk
bed to call my own, I still crawled in with Venus most nights, and we’d talk about these kinds of things. You’d think we’d
get enough talk of tennis during the day from Daddy, but Venus used to take the time as we drifted off to pick me up and set
me right. She could see when I’d had a tough day, when I needed a lift.

One of the reasons Venus cast such a big shadow, of course, was because she was so tall. Always, always. I used to watch her
play and think she was like a fierce swan out there on the court, with this incredible wingspan, able to reach every shot.
I just couldn’t get the ball past her. (Nobody could!) In contrast, I was really, really small—the runt of the litter. That’s
how I felt, growing up with all these big, beautiful sisters. And it wasn’t just Venus who dominated me on the court. Isha,
too, had some serious game. That’s another thing people don’t know about our family, that for a long time Isha was a rising
star, too. She could never quite touch Venus’s game, but she was good. In her own right, she was good. She was training to
be a champion, just like me and Venus, up until she was about thirteen, when she started to have some trouble with her back
and had to step away from the game. That was a real heartbreak for Isha, and for the rest of us, because she had a real shot.
After that, she took some time off and returned a couple years later to become a strong high school player, but it was at
a different level. And so, when we were kids, I was competing with Isha, too. That made two shadows for me to hide behind.

By this point, Tunde and Lyn had drifted from the game. Tunde always said she didn’t have an athletic bone in her body, so
she was happy to give it up. Lyn was a good athlete, but she started running track in middle school and said she didn’t have
time for tennis. Plus, she loved writing and music—she had an artistic soul. From time to time, Daddy would work on Lyn to
get her to take it up again because he said she showed a lot of promise, but she didn’t want to play. She’d had enough, she
said. So that just left the three of us.

I didn’t start growing until I was fifteen or sixteen years old, and my “clever” game was a direct result of my size. It came
from necessity; I had to compensate. I learned to be resourceful on the court, to work on my shot placement, to out-think
my opponent, because there was no way I was overpowering anybody out there. Physically, there was just no way.

That observation I made earlier about never cheating my opponent on the lines? It didn’t apply against Venus, because the
only way I could beat her was to cheat. She knew I was cheating, and I knew she knew I was cheating, but I cheated anyway.
If the call was close, it was mine.

I look back now and hate myself for cheating my big-hearted, generous, accommodating sister. Really, I’m so embarrassed by
my behavior, but at the same time I recognize that it goes hand in hand with how I cheated that girl in the Domino’s Pizza
League, when I felt I needed to. When my back was against the wall. When it was the only way I knew to compete. I wanted to
win so badly that I’d stoop to this, but I guess I didn’t see it as stooping. It was just reaching—in the wrong direction.

Daddy had us play against each other in practice. Not all the time, but a lot. He tried to get other hitting partners for
us, and we’d hit with local teenagers or college players from time to time, but the default option was always me against Venus.
We were always around. Anyway, we weren’t really competing against each other in these practice matches. Things weren’t like
that between us. They were like that in my head, but only in my head. I was definitely competing with myself. I was competing
against the low expectations everyone had set out for me, against the high expectations they had for Venus. Plus, I still
hated to lose, and I knew if I played Venus straight I’d probably lose. So I called balls out that weren’t. I insisted some
of my shots were clearly in, when they clearly weren’t. My justification was no justification, really. Venus was better than
me, that’s all. Way better. This was just my way of trying to win. It was wrong. I admit it. But it felt to me like I was
doing what I had to do to keep pace.

Venus never seemed to mind. She certainly never said anything. She just accepted my calls and played on—and in this way, I
guess, we pushed each other. She pushed me to get good enough to beat her legitimately. I pushed her to get good enough to
beat me so badly I couldn’t cheat my way from losing.

Daddy had this idea that he didn’t want us to play in proper tournaments. He didn’t want us to have to face all that pressure.
Also, he didn’t want so many sets of eyes on us, I think. He wanted to give us time to develop as players, before people had
a chance to check us out and weigh in on what he was trying to do. He didn’t care for second-guessing. He liked that we could
just do our thing on these different public courts, on our own timetable, without having to deal with these know-it-alls in
the tennis community who always seemed to have something to say.

Venus was ready to play in tournaments before I was. First of all, she was older, so she qualified. Second, and more important,
she was so physically impressive that I could no longer give her much of a game, even with my not-so-generous calls, and the
players Daddy brought around weren’t much competition, either. Very quickly, Venus got to where she really wanted to see how
she’d do in a proper tournament, just like the players on television, but my parents wouldn’t allow it. I joined in on the
argument, of course. I might have been a notch or two below Venus, but I was pretty good, too. I wanted to play, too. Finally,
we wore Daddy down. He said if Venus could beat him straight up, he’d let her play—and I knew that once that happened, I wouldn’t
be too far behind.

We all looked forward to that match between Venus and Daddy like it was a Wimbledon final. We talked about it the whole time
leading up to it. At least, Venus and I talked about it. At night, before we’d fall asleep, Venus would say, “Do you think
I can beat him? Do you think I really have a chance?”

I had no idea if she could beat him, because Daddy was such a good player. He was much stronger than Venus, obviously. He
was bigger. And he was smart. He really understood the game. Plus, we were so young! Venus was only nine or ten. How could
she hope to compete against a full-grown man? But I didn’t say any of these things to Venus. Most likely, it’s only in retrospect
that I recognize them. At the time, I probably just thought,
Yeah, sure, Venus can beat him. Why not?
So that’s probably what I said.

The day of the match finally arrived. It was set up at night, at one of the public parks. We all went out to watch. (You can
bet Daddy opened a couple new cans of balls for the occasion.) I remember it as a real exciting moment, a highlight family
event, and Venus beat him. She did! I don’t remember the score, but I don’t think Daddy eased up to let her win. It was a
hard-fought match. Daddy was sweating. He was trying, most definitely. We were all there; we all saw it. But Venus beat him,
she really and truly did, and we went to bed that night so happy because it meant that Venus could start playing in tournaments.
It meant we’d both be playing, before long. We talked and talked and talked about it under the covers before we finally fell
asleep.

Sure enough, that’s what happened. Venus started playing, and we started bouncing around as a family to all these tournaments.
For me, it was a mixed blessing. I was happy for Venus, and I really wanted her to do well, but now the focus shifted even
more in her direction. Now Daddy started to spend even more time on her game. This was around the time they started signing
me up for all those local recreational leagues so I’d have more of a chance to compete against kids my own age while Venus
was out doing her tournament thing, but I wanted what Venus had. I wanted the chance to beat Daddy in my own match, so I could
play tournaments, too.

Every day, I’d say, “Daddy, let’s play. Give me a chance. I want to play in tournaments, like V.”

But he’d always say, “Not yet, Meeka. You’re not ready.”

I
was so mad, so frustrated. I didn’t think there was anything I could do but wait for my chance, but then Venus was signed
up for this one tournament and I had an idea. Venus was nine, so it was a 10-and-under tournament. I was eight. The germ of
my idea was this: I used to play Office a lot with my sisters. It wasn’t really a game; it was more of a mind-set; we’d pretend
to answer phones and fill out papers and sit at our kitchen table like it was a desk in a real office. It’s like playing House,
only with phones and paperwork—a way to pretend we were grown-ups. So there I was one day, pushing around all these papers,
when I noticed an application for this particular tournament. For some reason, we had two applications lying around, so I
filled one out and sent it in. I didn’t have a checkbook, obviously, so I couldn’t pay the entry fee, but I sent in the entry
form. Then, when the tournament came around on the calendar, I went along for the ride with Venus and the rest of my family,
just like I always did. I didn’t say anything to anybody, not even my sisters.

A lot of times, I’d take my racquet with me to these tournaments, because there was a chance to hit on one of the open courts,
and there were usually other little sisters and little brothers running around, looking for something to do. Or, sometimes
my mom or dad would hit with me, while Venus was resting between matches. So nobody thought anything of it that I was dressed
to play, and when Venus went with my dad to go play her match I walked over to the registration table to see where I was in
the draw. Pretty devious, huh? But I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong. I just wanted what Venus had. That was all I
ever wanted, to be just like Venus—my role model, then and still—so I went out and took my turn like I had it coming.

When I tell this story now, people are amazed that I had the nerve to do something this big behind my parents’ backs. They
say that for an eight-year-old kid to go against authority like this is fairly remarkable—but I didn’t see it that way at
the time. I thought there was a good chance I’d get into some kind of trouble over it, but that didn’t stop me. I was too
excited to play to think of any negative consequences. The only potential negative, really, was that I wouldn’t play well,
but I wasn’t too worried about that. I knew I could beat these girls. As long as I didn’t have to play Venus, I thought I
had a shot.

My plan almost backfired, because Venus won her match in no time at all, and before long my dad was looking for me. He didn’t
like that I wasn’t around watching my sister. He didn’t like that he couldn’t find me. People kind of knew who we were at
this point, so he started asking people if they’d seen me. He asked one of the tournament officials, and the guy said, “Oh,
you mean the younger one? She’s playing her match on that court over there.”