The Venus-Serena Australian Open final is a victory lap for the greatest sports story ever
They're back. Impossible and improbably, Serena and Venus Williams, now 35 and 36 years old, respectively, are in a Grand Slam final once again, set to face off on the sport's biggest stage for the first time in nine years and doing so at the Australian Open, the tournament where they kicked off their professional rivalry all the way back in 1998. This is their ninth meeting in a Slam final, their first since Wimbledon in 2009 and will be a fitting coda and deserved victory lap for two of the most remarkable careers sports have ever seen.
And, oh yeah, sentiment and schlock aside, one of them is either going to break the record for most Grand Slams (Serena would earn No. 23) or the longest gap between Grand Slam wins (Venus would win her eighth title, nine years after winning her last). You know, no biggie.
Eight years ago, when Venus and Serena faced off in that Wimbledon final, I wrote that we should appreciate the moment, as every time the sisters played on a big stage might be the last. (I was right too - until this morning.) The Williams' always had other interests and there was every reason to believe that by 2011 or 2012, both could be off the tour, doing what they wanted without the stresses of the most physically and mentally demanding sport there is. This wasn't some far-flung theory either. Richard Williams had predicted as much. Thank goodness he, and everybody else, was wrong.
It's been easy to take the sisters for granted. Their dominance was simply a matter of fact. The two best tennis players of their era were two sisters who grew up in the same house in Compton and got into the game because their father saw a tennis match on TV and decided he'd like his daughters to do that and coached the girls without any prior knowledge of the sport and had them dreaming of playing each other on Centre Court in a Wimbledon final. That's the story! That's a crazy, insane, unbelievable story! Sisters growing up to become the two best tennis players in the world, playing nine times in major finals and, after Saturday, winning 30 of the last 67 Grand Slams in which one of them has played. This century, any time there was a Williams sister in a major, there was a 45% chance a Williams sister would be holding the big trophy at the end. And this felt normal. It shouldn't. It's legitimately mind-boggling.
It's crazy enough that Peyton and Eli Manning both won two Super Bowls but at least they were born into the game, the son of a college football legend and longtime NFL quarterback. That doesn't make their accomplishments any less impressive (far better quarterbacks have had more sons than Archie Manning), but it gives you a sense of just how amazing the Williams' story really is - rising from the tough streets of Compton, coached by their neophyte father who controversially held them out of junior tournaments because he didn't think the competition was good enough, earning national attention when they became teenagers, making a tour debut at 14, a Grand Slam debut at 16 and winning a Slam at 17. They were pioneers, black sisters in a county-club sport who had to endure ugly racial incidents early in their careers and navigated through them - as teenagers - with the same power and pose they showed on the court. They lived up to the hype, successfully dealing with the pressures of success and celebrity and serving as role models to those of all ages, colors or creeds. (Serena hasn't always been an angel, but we love flaws in our heroes.)
And now, 20 years after Venus Williams made the Grand Slam debuted and nine years after we thought we'd seen them battle in a final for the last time, they're back, hand-in-hand, at the pinnacle of the sport. None of it should be taken for granted, especially given all that's transpired since the last last time they met in a Slam final.
While Serena was experiencing a tennissaince in 2009, winning five of eight Slams, and then having a rebirth in 2012 (a start of a stretch in which she won eight Slams in 13 starts), Venus was slowly fading. From 2011-14, she made it past the third round at a major just once - a fourth-round appearance at Wimbledon in 2011. She fell into the triple digits in the WTA rankings, could barely win multiple matches at the easiest of tournaments and, over the past six years, had lost in the first round of majors more than she'd made the quarterfinals. Her battle with Sjogren's Syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that can sap a patient's energy, was revealed but never used as an excuse.
It got so rough for Venus that merely seeing her out on the court was a victory in itself. Results were secondary and her presence was an inspiration. It's easy to fight when no one can touch you. To continue to fight when you've tasted triumph but can no longer reach that level is almost unimaginable. Most people would have quit long ago, not content to have their sporting career end with a rash of first-round losses in tournaments they used to win by just showing up. Venus Williams is not most people.
She kept at it, slowly, probably unintentionally morphed into her sport's stateswoman. When a player carries herself with grace, plays with impeccable elegance and possess a child-like enthusiasm more than 20 years into a career, it's infectious. Everyone - from kids holding racquets bigger than they are to junior players rising through the ranks to 20-somethings on Tour to a certain family member who eventually surpassed her big sister but never stopped being the little sister - should want to be like Venus Williams when they grow up.
She entered Melbourne as the oldest player in the field. She's the oldest player in the top 300. And she was never great at the Australian Open even when she was great. Venus made her one and only final in 2003 (a loss to Serena) and hadn't been back to the semifinals since. You could say nobody believed in her at the start of the tournament but that assumes anybody was thinking about her beyond hoping she got a couple of wins to start the season off right.
Look where she is now, a place so familiar but now so foreign. It's a remarkable achievement in a career filled with them.
It turns out that playing tennis is what Venus and Serena have wanted to do all along. The outside interests weren't budding careers, they were healthy diversions from the most physically and mentally demanding sport - the only one where it's just you and your thoughts experiencing the highs, lows, ebbs and flows of a game with no clock, no timeout and no on-court coach (at least at Grand Slams). They needed the temporary escape from tennis. You don't play in Grand Slam finals at 36 if you're burnt out. The sisters have realized that the other stuff (such as their individual fashion empires) will be there whenever they actually decide to stop playing tennis. Given that they're still blessed with the ability, why stop now? Heck, at this point, retirement might still be a ways away. Serena is always the best player on the court and if Venus picks her spots, she could be serving her way deep into Wimbledon into her 40s.
Venus vs. Serena for the 28th time overall, the 15th time at a major and the 9th time in a major final. Who would've thought? So, set your alarms, put on a couple pots of coffee, get to a screen at 3:30 a.m. Saturday and pay homage to the greatest story in sports. We may never see it again ... although, we've been wrong before.
