On the Line (9 page)

Later on, people would say we’d set up our matches and figure out beforehand which one of us would win, but that’s absurd.
It’s enraging, really. I bristle every time I hear something like that, but what can you do? People are going to believe what
they want to believe and say what they want to say.

I have no response to these kinds of comments, so I hold my tongue. Venus, too. We were raised to believe that a lie cannot
stand forever—and it certainly cannot stand on its own. I think of that great line from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., from
that famous speech he made after his march from Selma to Birmingham. “However difficult the moment,” he said, “however frustrating
the hour, it will not be long, because truth pressed to earth will rise again. How long? Not long, because no lie can live
forever. How long? Not long, because you will reap what you sow. How long? Not long, because the arm of the moral universe
is long, but it bends toward justice.”

True, Dr. King was talking about something a whole lot more significant than a tennis match, but it goes to human nature,
don’t you think?
Truth pressed to the earth will rise again
. There’s such power in that sentiment, such grace. It’s not quite what Dr. King had in mind, but it applies. At least, I
choose to apply it here, because the first time I heard that charge against me and V I came away thinking,
If someone hurls an untruth in your direction, it doesn’t always pay to swat it back. Sometimes the thing to do is to just
let it hang there, unanswered, and wait for it to disperse.

Because no lie can live forever.

O
ver the years, these run-ins with Venus have become legendary in tennis circles. People say it’s been an epic battle. I don’t
know about that, but I do know that it’s put a stamp on my career. On Venus’s career, too, I think. We’ve played each other
pretty close—at one point going into the 2008 U.S. Open, we were dead even in tour matchups, at eight wins apiece—but we’ve
each had our momentum runs. In the beginning, Venus had the big-time edge. Then, for a stretch, I won a bunch of times in
a row. More recently, we’ve traded punches. In 2008, Venus beat me in the finals at Wimbledon; I beat her in the quarterfinals
at the U.S. Open. We’ve been up and down, and all over the place.

Nevertheless, this first-ever Grand Slam tournament between me and V at the 1998 Australian Open was a real turning point
in my career. It announced my arrival. I hated that I lost, but at the same time I didn’t mind, because the match held out
a carrot for me in terms of the player I might become. Throughout my development, there was always Venus to set the standard.
At times, when I was little, it seemed like an impossible standard, but there it was. She was the embodiment of my best self.
She was the player I hoped to be—the
person
I hoped to be, too. I’d watch her play, and go to school, and order ahead of me when we went to a restaurant, and generally
carry herself throughout her days, and I’d think,
Someday, that’ll be me.

During the 2008 U.S. Open, a reporter asked me an interesting question. She had been looking over my history with Venus in
all these Grand Slam tournaments, and she asked me how many more majors I might have won if Venus had not loomed in my path
on so many occasions. It was a reasonable question. Venus had knocked me from a major on five different occasions, twice in
the finals, so just going by the numbers I could see where the reporter was going with this line of thought. But I went another
way in my response. Without hesitating I said, “I don’t think I would have won nearly as many.”

This wasn’t exactly what the reporter expected to hear, so I talked about how growing up in Venus’s shadow has been such a
positive motivator for me. How the impossible standard she set on the court (and off!) was such a powerful model. How she
pushed me to be the very best I could be. I talked about how I learn by watching. All my life, that’s how it’s been. I’m a
good mimic; show me a couple dance moves, and I’ll have them down. Let me watch you learn your lines and hit your marks on
a television or movie set, and I’ll do the same. If you
tell
me something, it’ll probably go in one ear and straight out the other. But if you
show
me, I’ll get it. That’s how it was, watching Venus when we were little. At her very first tour event, I was taking all these
mental notes. She lost, but I could see where she lost. And when she lost, I lost. When she won, I won. How I played was all
tied in with how she played. And so by the time I went out there to fight my own battles, I was ready. It’s like I had all
this experience—Venus’s experience. Without V to lead the way, it would have taken me longer to get to where I wanted to be.
And then, once I started having some success on my own, I still looked to Venus. If she won a major, it fired me up to win
the next one. If she went out early to practice on the morning after a big win, I went out early to practice.

Really, I don’t know where I’d get that drive, were it not for Venus. I suppose I would have found it somewhere, but it might
have taken awhile. Yes, you look at the scoreboard and see that Venus beat me a bunch of times in Grand Slam tournaments.
She beat me twice in the finals—at Wimbledon in 2008 and at the U.S. Open in 2001—so right there that might have been two
more titles for me. But I don’t see it that way. The way I see it is, Who knows if I would have even made it that far without
Venus?

It’s the difference between a roadblock and an open lane—and it’s all the difference in the world.

She beat Venus, so take it to her. Play deep to her backhand. She gets nervous. U have nothing to lose, so play like it. U
will set the tone. Make her run. Get her. Remember, it takes courage and discipline to do/be Serena Williams—the best. U R
Serena Williams. U R the best. Keep that courage and discipline. Stay relaxed. Be happy.

—
MATCH BOOK ENTRY

T
here’s one match between me and Venus that stands out—only it’s memorable because we never played. I got credit for the win
in a walkover, but I would have gladly taken the loss if it meant we could have avoided all the grief and ugliness that came
our way as a result.

It was at the 2001 Indian Wells Masters. I had already won at Indian Wells in 1999, beating Steffi Graf in three sets in the
finals when I was only seventeen. That was a big deal. After that, it became my absolute favorite tournament, for a lot of
reasons. It was in a small town, just outside Palm Springs, California. I loved the setting. I loved where it fell on the
tour calendar, right before Miami. I loved that the fans were knowledgeable and respectful and appreciative. And I especially
loved that it was one of the few tournaments that allowed us all to be together, as a family. Palm Springs was close enough
to Los Angeles that Tunde could peel away for a few days, and we’d all stay together in the hotel and hang out, and it was
so much fun.

I came to Indian Wells at such a positive time in my career that I naturally attached all of these positive feelings to it.
But then the 2001 tournament came around and changed things up on me. That’s how it goes sometimes. Whenever you’re feeling
most comfortable, most in control, something happens to knock the wind out of you. In this way, tennis is a lot like life.
You might think you’re in control, but you’re never really in control. You might have a good game plan, but then you run into
someone or some
thing
on the other side of the net trying to move you off of it. You might do everything in your power to prepare for a special
moment, and you’re still caught unprepared.

I’d looked forward to the tournament for months. Then I got off to a strong start. Venus did, too. We were both happy about
that. We always liked it when we both did well—in the beginning of our careers, especially. Venus basically owned me in our
tour matchups at that point, with a 4-1 record, but I’d been playing well and I was ready to take it to her. Venus had already
won a couple majors by this point, and here I was, her younger sister, starting to make some noise with eight tour championships
and a major of my own. I’m sure the Indian Wells people were happy about the possible matchup.

As it played out, we each advanced to the semifinal round. I beat Lindsay Davenport in the quarterfinals 6–1, 6–2. This was
a big victory for me, because Lindsay was playing great tennis at the time. It was a real statement match. That’s what a convincing
win can do for you early in your career against a strong player. It can set you up as a player to watch. Already, with the
way we came up and joined the tour, Venus and I were players to watch, but now I was finally playing like the fuss was for
real.

Unfortunately, Venus struggled in her quarterfinal contest against Elena Dementieva. She won, but she struggled. The straight-sets
score didn’t really show it, but it was a tough match, mostly because it was ridiculously hot. That’s the one knock on Indian
Wells—it’s out in the desert and it can get really, really hot, although usually in March it’s not that bad. On this day,
though, Venus came down with heat exhaustion. The match went on for a long, long time. She was so dehydrated, she started
to cramp. She wasn’t really moving too well at the end. She couldn’t breathe when she came off the court. It was crazy. She
hurt her knee during the match, too. She won, but the match took its toll. Privately, she worried if she’d be good to go for
the semifinals. I felt terrible for her. It’s like I wrote earlier: when she won, I won; when she lost, I lost; and when she
hurt, I hurt, too. We talked about it, even though we were playing each other. We didn’t care about things like giving the
other one an edge. There was no gamesmanship. We were sisters. We each wanted the other to be at her best.

Despite Venus’s injuries, we prepared for the match like we normally did, and when we got to the stadium on the morning of
the semifinal Venus checked in with the tour trainer and told him she didn’t think she could play. She couldn’t have done
anything before that—and besides, she was hoping to be able to compete. A lot of times, you go to bed in a lot of pain and
you wake up in a lot less pain and you’re able to play. She wanted to give her body a chance to respond, but when she woke
up on the morning of the match she knew she was in no shape to play a semifinal in a Tier I tour event. Her knee was giving
her too much trouble. She was completely up front about it. She didn’t want to withdraw, but she believed she had no choice.

Daddy tended to leave it to us to listen to our own bodies. Game-day decisions like whether or not we were fit to play were
pretty much ours to make, so it was Venus’s call.

That is, it was Venus’s call until it wasn’t.

See, the way it works on the Women’s Tennis Association tour is that the tournament trainer consults with the tournament director
on all significant injuries. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. If there’s a possibility that a player won’t be able
to compete in her next match, they work it out so they can reschedule another match in its place. They’ll slot in a doubles
match, or a junior match, or maybe relocate a match from one of the outer courts. It happens a lot, so they have all these
backup plans in place, and usually no one thinks anything of it if someone has to pull out. It’s a shame, but it happens.
It’s part of the game.

The key, though, is you have to make this kind of decision in a timely manner. The closer you get to your scheduled start
time, the less understanding the crowd and the tournament organizers are likely to be. But on this day, with the two of us
scheduled to go at it in such a big match, no one wanted to see Venus pull out. The tournament director didn’t want it. The
fans didn’t want it. The sponsors didn’t want it. Venus and I certainly didn’t want it. There was buzz, hype, drama… and all
of that. People said it was good for the game, a match like this, but at the same time Venus felt strongly that she couldn’t
play. She knew her body. She knew she wasn’t able to go at anything close to full strength. More than that, she didn’t want
to risk a more serious injury, with three majors coming up in just a few months.

No doubt about it, there was a lot riding on this one decision, and Venus was in a difficult spot. If she was an older, more
established player, she might have been a little more forceful about the situation. She might have bypassed the trainer and
gone straight to the director. But she was a relative newcomer, and the rules said she had to get the trainer’s approval before
making a withdrawal, so that was what she tried to do. For hours and hours, that was what she tried to do. And for hours and
hours she got a kind of stiff-arm from the trainer, who kept telling her to hold off on making any kind of final decision.

It was the strangest, most frustrating thing. I felt so badly for V, not just because she was hurt, but also because she couldn’t
get anyone to take her seriously. This went on for a while after we got to the stadium. Venus wanted to pull out because of
her knee, but the tournament officials were stalling. They kept putting her off. It was like they weren’t letting her do what
was best for her. They wanted only what was best for them, which was for the match to go off as scheduled. I had no idea what
was going on. Nobody did. At one point I said to Venus, “V, what’s the deal? You gonna be able to play?” It didn’t matter
that I was her semifinal opponent; she would always be straight with me.

She said, “I really don’t think so. I’m hurt.”

I knew my sister. If she said she couldn’t play, she couldn’t play. Plain and simple. Plus, I could see she was hobbled. She
wasn’t right. If she could have gone at sixty percent or seventy percent, she would have sucked it up and played—and she would
have given me a tough match, I’m sure of it—but that quarterfinal match against Dementieva had really taken a bite out of
her. She couldn’t go at all.