In tennis, the mental game can be almost as pivotal as the physical, never more so than when the player across the net is Serena Williams.
Maria Sharapova went into their Wimbledon semi-final dragging the baggage of what some US media outlets refer to as their “un-rivalry” – 16 straight defeats in the last 11 years, with her only two wins back in 2004. In search of some competitive way to rationalise those numbers, the Russian told the media: “Every time it’s a new match.” Yes – along with a new defeat, it seems.
Garbine has been around a while. She's played really big here. She's beaten me before. She knows what to do
Sharapova was about as much of a problem as the wasp the No.1 seed swatted away shortly before notching up a double break in the first set. For Sharapova – the only other active player with a complete set of Slam titles – the 6-2, 6-4 defeat in 79 minutes was largely a familiar story. Williams flattened her to reach her first Wimbledon final in three years.
With Serena into her 25th Grand Slam final, at least it can be said of the player barring her way to a second calendar Slam that this opponent has actually beaten her at some stage in the last decade or so. Step forward the No.20 seed Garbine Muguruza, who shocked Serena at Roland Garros in 2014. That day the Spaniard dished out the most humiliating Grand Slam defeat of Williams’ career, permitting her just four games, and afterwards the victor said this: “A change is coming. Some time the new generation has to come through and I think now is the moment.”
Famous last words. On the contrary, actually what happened was that Serena decided the age of 32 was exactly the time to rediscover how much she still wanted to win, and set about doing just that in the biggest way possible.
“It was an eye-opening loss for me. Some losses you’re angry about and some you learn from. That loss I learned the most from in a long time. I was able to improve a lot. I worked on things. I didn’t see the results straight away, but months later I did. It helped me say, ‘Okay Serena, you want to be the best, you’re going to have to improve’. I keep reinventing myself. So many players are older and playing really well.”
Muguruza’s ranking will rocket at least to No.9 by making the final. Animated and charming, the idea that she might beat Serena again – here, on grass – is a stretch. The seedings dictated that it would be the defending champion Petra Kvitova who would face Serena, and on grass that was a truly spine-tingling prospect as the Czech is the only player to have defeated Williams this year, in the Madrid semi-finals two months ago. But Kvitova fell in the third round, while Serena strode on.
Her match-winning streak in Grand Slams now stands at 27 – a figure which is not even the best of her career. She won 33 straight in 2002-03 on the way to her first ‘Serena Slam’, completed three months after Muguruza’s ninth birthday.
Williams has already been avenged upon the Spaniard once since that Roland Garros mortification, in Melbourne this year. Again the Spaniard took the first set 6-2, but this time Serena turned the match around to take another step towards her sixth Australian crown; now she wants the half-dozen at Wimbledon. With that in mind, she had some interesting things to say about Muguruza, most especially the familiar line that the 21-year-old can play with abandon against her because she has nothing to lose.
Garbine Muguruza
“She has Wimbledon to lose,” pointed out Williams. “I don’t think it’s the same situation as [when I lost to 17-year-old] Maria in the 2004 final. Garbine has been around a while. She’s played really big here. She’s beaten me before. She knows what to do. That puts her in a unique position where she has an opportunity to be Wimbledon champ.”
There is of course the matter of Serena’s own “unique position”. At almost 34, this extraordinary player is in the most astonishing phase of her career, gathering Slams more greedily than ever before, her appetite unsated for the labour required. She has 20 Grand Slams already. Many observers estimate she may yet win another five, including the two she needs in 2015 to complete an outright Grand Slam.
Actually, it has not been difficult to spot that Serena has been an enthusiastic practitioner of mental rationalising herself at Wimbledon 2015, with her refusal to discuss the Slam directly, and her repeated chorus that she is “just in this Championship to have fun”. Sure she is.
“I’ve won so many Slam titles. I could lose on Saturday and I won’t be happy, but I don’t need another Wimbledon. I don’t need any titles to make it. I’m not as desperate to win anymore. I’ve won all the Slams multiple times. Now I’m just here to enjoy it.”
Let’s take a quick poll. Who’s buying that line? Anyone? Nothing at stake at all, other than part three of the first Grand Slam in women’s tennis since Steffi Graf’s 27 years ago.
Nothing to see here, people. Move along.
