Serena Set to Storm Into the Summer

July 28, 2014 | By Andrew Eichenholz
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Photo credit: Adam Wolfthal

Seventeen Grand Slam titles … 60 total championships and more than 600 career wins … Serena Williams, a four-time Gold Medal winner from three separate Olympic Games has suffered shocking losses early in tournaments this year, leaving fans, coaches and players alike left wondering if anybody will step up to challenge the queen’s throne on top of the game.

Not a chance.

In fact, blips on Serena’s resumé are quite normal for the 32-year old. History dictates that whenever the most feared ball striker in recent history suffers an early setback, she comes back with a vengeance for the foreseeable future.

After her most recent disappointment, a loss in the second round of the French Open to Spaniard Garbine Muguruza, Serena made a bold claim: “You can’t be on every day. I’m going to go home and work five times as hard to make sure I never lose again.”

However absurd her statement may seem, the past has shown that nobody should doubt Serena Williams in the face of adversity.

Last season, the sixth winningest Grand Slam player in history dropped a tight match at Wimbledon to eventual finalist Sabine Lisicki, an extremely dangerous opponent on any surface. How did Serena respond? She won the U.S. Open later in the summer without yielding a set closer than 6-4 until the final, where she beat Victoria Azarenka.

The year before, Williams had a start to the season eerily similar to how she has started her current campaign. A fourth round loss Down Under at the Australian Open may have been a disappointment. A first round exit at Roland Garros proved the impossible possible.

“There’s no excuse,” Serena said after her loss to Virginie Razzano, making sure the press knew that, in the end, the events of that day only happened on a tennis court. “It’s life.”

The simplest way to summarize the rest of her season is that the great champion made a statement. She could face challenges, but whatever came her way, she would meet them head on. A trio of three-setters at Wimbledon in 2012 tested Serena’s nerve, but she started a historical end-of-season run by taking that title over the always pesky Agnieszka Radwanska.

Never before had Serena taken the Olympic Gold Medal in singles. Not only did she emphatically do so at the London Games, but Serena dropped a total of 17 games in six matches against the best of the best in the world in the process. If that wasn’t enough, she teamed with her sister Venus to take the Gold Medal in doubles as well, dominating the field without dropping a set.

Every great athlete has had letdowns, allowing a major accomplishment to cloud their focus. That year’s U.S. Open showed that Serena would never allow it. After a relatively routine tournament, her biggest rival at the time, Azarenka, played the best match of her career. Serving at 5-3 in the final set, the Belarusian had a chance to cap the season with a huge headline. Would David complete the slaying of Goliath?

Not a chance.

In typical Serena fashion, she clawed her way back and fought to another Grand Slam title. Only two other players in the history of the game had ever won Wimbledon, the Olympics and the U.S. Open in the same year. That is how Serena responded to disappointing losses.

Did anybody sit down in January and predict that arguably the greatest player to ever touch a racket would lose to Ana Ivanovic and Garbine Muguruza in the first two majors of the season? Absolutely not.

That doesn’t mean that Serena lost to two players from the nearest club. Ivanovic, although inconsistent, has won a Grand Slam, and Muguruza is one of the up and coming players on the WTA Tour, arguably one of the biggest hitters out there.

No matter how shocking it is, every tennis player loses matches on every stage, even Serena Williams. Does that mean that she is going to keep doing so? Probably not.

Every great champion finds a way, no matter how ugly it may look. Many doubt Rafael Nadal when he suffers a surprising loss. What does he do? He responds. Many have ruled out the greatest male of all time, Roger Federer. Don’t be surprised if he comes back to win another major title himself.

The bottom line is, it is best not to wake a sleeping giant. Unfortunately for the WTA Tour, Muguruza might have done just that. Look out for the rest of the season, the name Serena Williams will be back.


Andrew Eichenholz
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