It ended much too badly for Venus Williams, some of it her fault, too. She played poorly in the U.S. Open final, and still that should have been a happy thing.
She made history and took four games off the best in the world, Martina Hingis.
Hingis is merely so good that, at 16, she was a French Open final loss from winning the Grand Slam.
“What can I do from here? Sometimes I ask myself,” Hingis said. “It is a little bit scary.”
Whatever happens next will take care of itself. And the tennis will determine it. It will not be race or nationality or the agenda of parents or the prying press. This is true of Hingis. This is true of Williams.
The great thing about games, especially games where opponents must meet each other in competition, is that there will be a winner. There will be a loser. All grudges can be settled in the arena.
Tennis is a game where Williams can be everything she says she will be. And she says she will be the best. It will happen or it won’t.
More Top Picks Best Ankle Support Shoes Under 100
“I made it to the finals,” Williams said. “I did OK.”
Even before the questions about racism, questions raised by Williams’ father, young Venus was snippy and short and bored in her postmatch press obligation. Very easy to dislike, she is. And for someone so fresh, so needed by tennis, she is not liked.
“If Venus had done the same thing Mike Tyson did, that’s what that girl would have deserved.”
This is Richard Williams, the father, talking. This was before the final. He is talking about the Romanian Irina Spirlea, who bumped Venus during a changeover during the quarterfinals. Spirlea then referred to Venus in gutter language.
What Williams saw was clearly a racial challenge. It was a challenge, no doubt. Suggesting it would have been fine if his daughter had bitten an opponent’s ear is not the usual tennis response.
“We’re from Compton (Calif.). They have to realize we don’t take no bull.”
Richard Williams again. He didn’t join his daughter on the biggest day of her young life. His reasons are his own. Venus sent her love to him through TV after the loss. She demanded to the press directly to get off her dad’s back.
“My father is a competent coach,” she said. “You guys (the press) are getting overly involved. You’re just finding something to pick at.”
Her father was quoted as referring to the women on tour as “white turkeys,” also as “mules” and as “dumb.” He said that if the powers in tennis do not discipline Spirlea in some way, he will not allow his daughter to wear the WTA patch on her dress.
Venus Williams did not deserve to have all of this heaped on her, not after the biggest match of her career, a loss in which she was entirely outclassed, not at age 17, not at the very beginning of her tennis life.
She should be concerned with learning to play better tennis, thinking better tennis, figuring out how to beat Hingis next time.
“I think I’ll just play my game and play it better,” she said. “Make fewer mistakes. One of my only weaknesses is I hit unforced errors.”
Venus Williams needs better coaching and she needs better advice. Certainly she has the love and support of her family. That’s given and that’s good.
She does not need the pressure of her father declaring that, unless Jackie Joyner-Kersee comes back, his daughter is the greatest athlete in the world.
She does not need her father interpreting competitive spite, as it certainly was from Spirlea, as anything other than that. Williams got even. She won the match.
Whether there is a chip on her shoulder or not, it appears that there is. It may be her father’s chip. She should not have to carry it for him.
In the sponsor-heavy world of tennis, image means money. Venus Williams has been compared to Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe and Tiger Woods. These are huge shoes for young feet to fill.
It may turn out that the more accurate comparison for Venus is Pam Shriver, who got to the Open final in her first try, lost it and never came close again.
Just a thought.