New York is now the next stop on the Serena Williams tour of tennis grandeur.
There
is no question that she can make it there, at the U.S. Open, the final
Grand Slam tournament of the year, because in a tennis career that has
carried on for 17 years, she has made it everywhere.
Saturday's
6-4, 6-4 victory over Garbine Muguruza in the Wimbledon final unleashed a
load of statistical updates and numerical superlatives.
Williams completed what is known as the "Serena Slam."
There
are four major tournaments on the tour and she has now won four in a
row. She is the only women's player to do that twice, having also run
off four in a row starting with the 2002 French Open. Martina
Navratilova did it starting with Wimbledon in 1983 and Steffi Graf
starting with the French in 1993.
But those achievements spanned
two separate years. The bigger deal is a calendar-year Grand Slam, and
that's what will be making big headlines in New York City, where the
Open begins Aug. 31.
That feat has been accomplished by Maureen
Connolly in 1953, Margaret Court in 1970 and Graf in 1988, the same year
she also won an Olympic gold medal and went on to win the following
year's Australian Open.
Not a bad run. Nor is the one Williams is on now.
She
came to last year's U.S. Open after disappointing early losses at the
previous three majors. She won there and has not looked back.
When
she gets to the U.S. Open, which she has won six times, Williams can do
what hasn't been done since Graf 27 years ago. She can also tie Graf's
open-era record of 22 major titles. That's two behind Court's 24, more
than half of those accumulated before tennis' all-professional tour
began in 1968.
Interestingly, New York might reserve a headline or
two for Saturday's runner-up.Muguruza, a 21-year-old Spaniard, made the
final a fascination. Williams won, but a star was also born on the
other side of the net.
Muguruza came here with little chance of
making the final. She was nowhere in the top 100 two years ago, and was
No. 20 here. But she is from Spain, where playing tennis on grass,
rather than clay, is sneered at and where Rafael Nadal's occasional
success at Wimbledon is considered both a tribute to him and a fluke of
nature.
"I came here last year," Muguruza said, "but I didn't like grass."
This year was different.
"This year, I came, thinking, I like grass."
But
liking grass, and playing Serena Williams and her history of five
previous titles on it here, were two entirely different things. Muguruza
was between a longshot and a no-chance.
But a funny thing
happened on the way to the thrashing. Muguruza answered Williams' hard
hitting with her own, and got to 3-1 and 4-2 leads in the first set.
Williams,
of course, figured it out, started overwhelming Muguruza, and soon had
not only won the set, 6-4, but had run off to a 5-1 lead in the second.
On the women's tour, this is where 95% of opponents look at Williams and start mentally packing their bags. Not Muguruza.
Williams served for the match at 5-1. Muguruza broke her at love.
Williams
served for the match at 5-3. She got a match point, but Muguruza hit
the chalk with a cross-court forehand. On her fifth break point,
Muguruza hit a forehand winner and was back on serve at 4-5.
The
Centre Court crowd loved it. Their emotions, if neither a Brit nor Roger
Federer is involved, are driven by backing the underdog and rooting for
a longer match. This was somehow different.
The 15,000 strong had
in front of them a hopeless underdog, outclassed by 20 Grand Slam
victories, by 20 spots in the rankings and by 13 years of age and
experience.
But Muguruza kept getting off the mat, and the Brits were going wild.
In
her on-court interview afterward, Muguruza told the crowd, "I am proud
to play in front of you." To the media later she said, "I think they saw
in me that I really wanted to win . . . that I give everything to
tennis. They like when they see someone fighting so much to win."
At
4-5 of the fight, Williams had had enough. Muguruza started with a
double fault and now there were more butterflies than fight. Williams
got a cheapie off the net cord for love-30, Muguruza hit a backhand long
and now faced three match points. She went meekly on the first one,
hitting wide.
The appreciation for this newfound battler flowed
over into the awards ceremony. The Brits always feel sorry for the
losers at these times, but the standing ovation indicated that Muguruza
would be more than a quickly forgotten name on a list of also-rans to
Williams.
"I couldn't stop crying," Muguruza said later. "So many
people are clapping. . . . I make all these people feel this in a tennis
court?"
Even Williams stood and applauded from her chair, then
told Muguruza, "Don't be sad. You'll be holding one of these [trophies]
soon."
Muguruza, a news conference delight with a rare streak of candidness, was asked about Williams' on-court comment.
"It's good when you hear something like this from a legend," she said, "but at that moment, I was like, ya, ya."
Williams
said she served poorly, but she still hit 12 aces. She had 29 winners
and had a top service speed, several times, of 123 mph. In his semifinal
victory over Andy Murray on Friday, Federer's top service speed was
126.
Williams said she was still letting the moment settle in. She
said she would be ready for New York and the attention and pressure
that will hit her there.
"I feel like, if I can do the Serena Slam," she said, "I'll be OK heading into the Grand Slam."
And so it will be, Serena Williams in the Big Apple, wearing those vagabond shoes.
bill.dwyre@latimes.com
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