Seeking a rightful place

Personality : Despite her monumental achievements, Serena Williams hasn't got her due from tennis fans

In a throwback move at the champions’ dinner Sunday night, this year’s Wimbledon singles champions - Serena Williams and Novak Djokovic - danced together. Back in the day, this pas de deux was standard practice for the Wimbledon winners. But it had long fallen out of favor until Djokovic decided to get the ball rolling again and invited Williams to join him.

“I was thinking more of a waltz or something I would say more sophisticated,” Djokovic said Monday morning at the All England Club. “But Serena wanted to move a bit more, so then we considered other options.”

The choice was the 1970s disco hit “Night Fever” by the Bee Gees, and though the champions did not move for long or with particular conviction, it was hard not to think about how close they came to being completely in step this season.

If not for Stan Wawrinka playing an extraordinary match in the men’s French Open final last month, both Djokovic and Williams would probably be closing in on a Grand Slam.

Instead, Djokovic will have to settle for having won the Australian Open and Wimbledon as he heads to New York, where Williams alone will go for a calendar-year sweep of the four major tournaments at the US Open.

She will do so 27 years after Steffi Graf completed the last Grand Slam in the same cacophonous place. It will be intriguing to watch how much Serena’s quest, which could be a nerve jangler based on her results this year, reverberates outside the tennis silo.

“An athlete shouldn’t be punished just because they’ve made us expect it from them,” said Andy Roddick, who has known Williams since childhood. “No disrespect to the women’s national soccer team, but they get it done and everyone is going nuts. But Serena gets it done every single year without fail and just because it’s not new and shiny, maybe she doesn’t get the respect she deserves.”

It will indeed be intriguing to see whether Williams, still winning big at 33, will connect with her public on a deeper level after some of the ambivalence and controversies of the past.

“I hope so,” said Martina Navratilova, the last woman to win Wimbledon at age 33. “Because the way she dominates is just the epitome of an athlete out there in a good way.”

Isha Price, Williams’ perceptive older half sister, who has been along for much of the ride, is hopeful, too. She said that Williams was in a particularly happy phase of her life and that she was able to savor the process of winning four straight majors much more than the first so-called Serena Slam, which spanned 2002 and 2003.

“She was playing Venus in every final then, so there were many mixed emotions,” Price said.

It has been a year of bridging long-standing divides, symbolized by Williams’ decision to end her boycott of the Indian Wells event, where she was booed in 2001 and where her father and coach at the time, Richard Williams, said he had heard racist taunts.

“I really hope that people don’t open their eyes when she’s gone,” Roddick said. "I mean the story alone of two girls from Compton succeeding in tennis on the will and the thought of a father, regardless of what you think about Richard, the story alone is unbelievable.

“I’m biased. I know Serena behind the curtain. I’ve seen the sweet side, and I know what kind of person she is. I wish other people got to see more of her. It’s pretty impressive. The story goes that if you win long enough, people come around. She’s won plenty long enough.”

This year’s US Open will mark 17 years since Williams made her Grand Slam debut in 1998, and 16 years since she won her first Grand Slam singles title in 1999. She has now won 21. With another victory in New York, she will tie Graf’s Open-era record of 22 majors.

After that, all that would remain is Margaret Court’s overall record of 24 - and Court won 11 of those Grand Slam singles titles at the Australian Championships when they did not regularly attract all the leading players.

In light of that and Serena’s enduring excellence, there is momentum building behind the concept of deeming her the greatest player of all time. It is a subjective process, one in which it is always tempting to give too much weight to the great champion in front of you, the one whose victory under pressure is the freshest in your mind.

What is beyond dispute is that Williams has not been nearly as consistent in regular tour events during her career as players like Navratilova, Chris Evert and Graf.

Navratilova won 167 singles titles as well as 177 doubles titles in an era when doubles was much more prestigious than now. Evert won 154 singles titles. Graf, who did not play as long as Williams has played, won 107. Williams, for the moment, has 67, which puts her in a tie for sixth on the career list with Billie Jean King.

The Grand Slam tournaments have continued to take on more importance in recent years, which is also a magnifier in view of Williams’ often Slam-centric excellence.

But if “greatest” means the player who would have beaten all the rest at their respective peaks, it is hard not to feel a strong tug in Williams’ direction. Her power serving and her serving under pressure are weapons that no other great player has possessed to the same degree. She is also complete off the ground and, guided by her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, improving her volleys, overhead and tactical variations.

“She just seems to be as fresh as she ever was,” Navratilova said. “I get such heat when I tweet what a power game she has. People say she’s about a lot more than power. Of course, she has all the shots, but power wins.”

Navratilova added: “She’s that much stronger, and because of that she’s got that amazing confidence. She knows it.

“She knows that when push comes to shove she can uncork it or just play her 75 percent and it’s harder than 100 percent of somebody else’s. So it gives her a lot of sa­fety.”

But as Navratilova knows, mental strength has many elements. The inner clenched fist that Williams can summon is innate. And she has proved her ability to win under many states of grace and duress on her way to winning 21 of 25 major singles finals.
Now, she has just one more to go.

Does she agree that a Grand Slam - winning all four in the same year - should be viewed as the tennis ultimate?

“I think so, because of what everyone writes and what everyone says and seeing it as the ultimate,” Williams said. “So obviously you can’t help but see it that way, too.”

Andy roddick: I’m biased. I know Serena behind the curtain. I’ve seen the sweet side, and I know what kind of person she is. I wish others got to see more of her, It’s pretty impressive.