Serena Williams Has Announced Her Impending Retirement - And I Cried.
Unable to understand why I cried, I reflected upon why I was so emotional.
I’ve followed Serena Williams for decades, however, Venus, with her sparkling eyes and winning smile, came into my life first and instantly captured my loyalty and affection. The idea that Venus’s younger sister, of all people, was going to emerge as Venus’s greatest sporting obstacle and deny Venus multiple grand slams, felt wrong. Didn’t Serena know her place? Didn’t she respect her big sister enough to at least tank a few matches and send her big sister to bed happy? I have siblings, I can’t imagine relentlessly beating them into a pulp and pulverising their dreams while I’m at it – at least not permanently.
By now everyone knows Serena mercilessly walloped Venus many times on many tennis courts in many far-flung countries around the world and never once thought to herself, “Here, Big Siss, I love you,” and threw Venus a freebie. I still cannot comprehend how the thought of causing Venus’s world-class smile to freeze, crack and break, never once caused Serena to tighten up on a serve or drive a winning ball out of bounds because of a burst of overwhelming sisterly love… I suppose Serena’s lack of compassion towards her Big Sister can be understood (if not easily forgiven) because despite being a fervent Jehovah's Witness and always determined to act as her Lord would have her do so – with love and compassion towards her fellow human beings – Serena always showed the same lack of Lucifarian mercy towards all her opponents. Somewhere along the line, Serena decided those incidental little bits of biblical advice about “Loving Thy neighbour” and “Turn the other cheek” only applied to real-world situations.
Think about this: When a scorpion accepts an offer from a kindly frog to sit on the frog’s back and be safely carried across a tumultuous river, and then bites the helpful frog on the neck, do we blame the scorpion for merely acting according to its nature? No, we don’t. We accept the scorpion behave as its creator intended and forcefully stings every living thing within its sights because it was born and designed to do just that.. And so it was with Serena.
Serena was born into this world to overcome any and all obstacles the world she was born into threw at her. These challenges came in different forms - an often violent community environment, a tight family budget, predatory drug dealers, armed and dangerous gang bangers, snobbish, socially restrictive tennis clubs, the psychological stress of being a serial winner, and, finally, when endeavouring to become a mother, almost dying after giving her birth to her daughter. Every difficulty the capricious world threw at Serena always, always broke upon the unyielding anvil of her psychological and spiritual resolve. In short, Serena came, she saw, and she conquered.
As Serena prepares to depart the global tennis stage she has made her own private playground for well over thirty years, she leaves a sporting legacy that by comparison, unequivocally diminishes the achievements of every other female tennis player who preceded her: Every time a tennis commentator expounds upon the tennis virtues of a former tennis great – Steffi Graf’s athleticism and movement, Margaret Court’s heavy shot, Billie Jean King’s mental strength, Monica Sele’s killer instinct, Althea Gibson’s speed, Evonne Goolagong’s eye-catching talent for spontaneous improvisation – in every single metric, Serena at least matched and often quantifiably exceeded the best weapon of her fellow greats and not so great peers.
Serena was simply too good.
It’s clear Serena’s enormous sporting successes have been entirely subsumed by the larger totality of her cultural and social achievements, so much so that this is no longer a tennis story; it is a tale that will now and forever be referred to as Serena’s Story.
Did I say Serena's story? Allow me to correct myself. I should say Serena’s movie.
Serena’s larger-than-life personality, her outsized and completely justified belief in talent to overcome all obstacles, is founded upon a personality that commands the camera as easily as Katherine Hepburn, Cicely Tyson, Meryl Streep, and (suitably and often) provided more drama than any of these outstanding actresses have ever conjured up for their most important close-up. They might not have known it, but every athlete who stepped onto a court to face Serena was actually stepping onto a movie set Serena believed had been created for the sole purpose of Serena showing off her best game to the carefully arranged cameras.
That’s right. Venus, Jennifer, Steffi and Martina were all merely suitable background fodder booked by a favourable casting agent. Their role was to play the willing but ultimately fallible foil to the plucky heroine from Compton who had risen from the depths of American society to become an invincible global sporting icon. The likes of Muguruza, Kerbe, and Azeraneka were only really required to turn up on Serena’s set on time, hold their rackets with conviction, and move around as if they had a semblance of tennis ability; Wozniacki and Sharapova could fall flat on their faces in the first act of the movie or in the second or even make it to the last few minutes, but, before the credits rolled, they were to fall. The very last image the audience was to have burned upon their hypnotised pupils was of Serena holding the trophy aloft, her eyes smiling up to heaven, praising Jehovah for her many blessings, having conquered all!
Fade to black. Credits roll. Written, Directed, Produced and Starring Serena Williams.
Who knows if there will be a sequel?
I can’t say Serena was my favourite tennis player or even my favourite tennis personalty. So why the tears? Without knowing, it, Serena became part of my life. My many ups and my many downs occurred while she was playing tennis somewhere on a tennis court. She’s always been there as a fixed constant. And now she’s leaving. Serena has said she finds goodbyes hard. Well, right back at her.
samjhere@gmail.com