| | Associated Press
WIMBLEDON, England -- Venus Williams thrilled at the sight
of Zina Garrison playing in the Wimbledon final 10 years ago.
As a scrawny 10-year-old who already had pop in her game, she
was amazed to see a black woman on TV playing on the most famous
lawn in the world, while she and her sister Serena whacked balls on
the concrete courts of Compton, Calif.
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Saturday, July 8
Playing her first Wimbledon final, Venus Williams proved to be very tough mentally. She concentrated extremely well, and her forehand held up as well as expected in a major final.
Her serve nearly got her into big trouble, especially when she was serving for the match, up 5-4 in the second set. She had a couple of double faults and looked tight and tense. But Venus came back to play a mature tiebreak. A lot of times when players have the opportunity to serve for the match, they lose it and can't get it back, but Venus was able to recover nicely.
There were a lot of service breaks in the match, 11 overall. Davenport's serve was disappointing. One of the reasons Davenport has played at such a high level is that her serve has become a big weapon, but her serve was broken six times in the match. Plus, Davenport's movement seemed to be inhibited.
It was fantastic to see Venus' joy and enthusiasm at the end. Winning that first major is such an incredible moment. After Serena won the U.S. Open last year, it was very important for Venus and her overall confidence to win Wimbledon. She needed to win a major this year because the more time passes, the more difficult it would have gotten for her. After the presentation, Venus ran outside to show the people her silver platter, like a kid with a new toy.
Venus won Wimbledon in such an incredible way. In the quarterfinals she beat Martina Hingis, a five-time major champion. In the semifinals she beat her sister Serena, who had demolished everyone else in the tournament. Then she defeated the defending champion for the title. It was a great effort and a quality finish.
Now that both sisters have won majors, people will start looking for them to become the No. 1 and 2 players in the world. It may take a while, though, because of Davenport and Hingis. The Williams sisters need to learn the value of consistency and good health all year. If they remain healthy and eager, there is no reason why they can't be 1-2 in the world.
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At Centre Court on Saturday, Garrison sat near Serena in the
guest box and watched Venus win Wimbledon by beating defending
champion Lindsay Davenport 6-3, 7-6 (3) with the kind of flair that
Althea Gibson showed when she became the first black women's
champion in 1957 and 1958.
Gibson had given Garrison a message for Venus before the match
to remember to bend her knees. It's the oldest advice in tennis,
and easy enough to forget when a match gets tense. But Garrison
decided not to pass it on to Venus because she didn't want to make
her nervous.
Instead, Garrison wrote Venus a note saying, "The time is
now."
"The one thing I knew was that just being there isn't enough,"
said Garrison, who lost to Martina Navratilova in 1990. "You have
to win it. It was very emotional for me out there, and it was
pretty amazing to have an African American win the event."
Gibson, 72, lives in East Orange, N.J. She was too ill to travel
to Wimbledon but was very much on Williams' mind.
"I knew she was watching when Serena won the U.S. Open,"
Williams said. "She said that she was happy that she got to see
another black person win it in her lifetime. So now I think it's
really a privilege for me to win this Wimbledon while she's still
alive."
Williams came to Wimbledon so confident that she would follow in
Gibson's footsteps that she dashed out to a mall and bought her
champions dinner ball gown before she left home.
It was her way of making a promise to herself, her way to push
herself to fulfill her childhood dreams and her father's prophecy
when she was born.
Venus and Serena Williams were raised to be champions, and on
this cool, cloudy day the big sister claimed the Wimbledon silver
salver -- the aptly named "Venus Rosewater Dish" -- for a family
trophy case that already has the little sister's 1999 U.S. Open
cup.
It's the first time in tennis history two sisters have each won
a Grand Slam championship.
"We're breaking records and we're moving forward," Venus
Williams said. "I always expected to win Grand Slams. This was
meant to be."
When the moment she had foreseen arrived, Williams hopped up and
down giddily, then scampered up the steps from Centre Court to hug
Serena and their father and coach, Richard. Serena and Richard fought back tears. Venus simply glowed.
When the vivacious 20-year-old returned to the court for the
trophy presentation, she twirled in half-circles as she once did in
ballet classes, laughing and waving her arms. Her utter joy carried
over to a crowd that laughed with her.
Everyone knew they were seeing something special: the blossoming
of a young woman who could dominate tennis for years along with her
sister.
"It's really great because I've worked so hard all my life to
be here," Williams said after accepting the trophy from the
Duchess of Kent. "It's strange. I always dream I win a Grand Slam.
When I wake up, it's a nightmare. Now that I've got it, I don't
have to wake up like that any more."
Gazing at the huge sterling silver dish, embossed with an image
of the goddess Venus and other mythological figures, plus the names
of past champions, Williams said, "It's better than the men's cup
in my opinion."
She earned the trophy and a $650,000 winner's check by beating
three of the best players in the game, Martina Hingis, Serena, and
Davenport -- all only a few months after coming back from a
six-month layoff due to tendinitis in both wrists.
She showed in this tournament that she is not only healthy, but
vastly improved from her first visit to a Grand Slam final at the
1997 U.S. Open, when she lost to Hingis.
"You knew eventually she was going to win a Grand Slam,"
Davenport said. "It's nice to see the monkey get off her back.
Both Serena and Venus are going to win more Grand Slam titles.
Venus is going to be a lot tougher to beat now that she has this
first one under her belt."
Against Davenport, who was struggling with a strained back and
left leg, Williams displayed ferocious, accurate forehands that had
never been part of her repertoire. She always had one of the best
two-fisted backhands in the game and a serve that could crank out
120 mph aces, but the addition of the new weapon made Williams more
formidable.
She unleashed that forehand for a clean winner at the end of a
long rally to begin the key break of Davenport's serve to 3-1 in
the first set.
Yet more than merely hammering shots, Williams showed she has
developed a deft touch on drop shots and a sense of creativity on
the court as she exploited Davenport's lack of range.
When Davenport tried to break back in the final game of the
opening set, and had Williams down 0-30 after a double-fault,
Williams responded with two whistling winners from the baseline,
one a backhand, the next a forehand, then drilled a service winner
at Davenport's body. At deuce, Williams hit another forehand
winner, then watched Davenport whack a forehand 10 feet long to
drop the set in 32 minutes.
"It's tough when your opponent is hitting the ball so hard, on
the lines," Davenport said. "That tends to make (the ailments) a
little worse. It was just really hard to combat the power that she
was giving me and try and run down enough balls on the grass."
The second set sank into a mess of eight broken service games
until they arrived at 5-5. Williams served for the match at 5-4,
but quickly fell to love-40 after a couple of double-faults and an
error. Though she managed an ace for a brief reprieve, her forehand
let her down on the next point.
"I didn't really think I was going to lose serve," Williams
said. "In the end, I think my technique broke down. But I just
wasn't going to let it hold me back today.
After Davenport won the first point of the tiebreaker, Williams
took over, sweeping the next five points, and finally clinching the
match after 1 hour, 23 minutes when Davenport netted a volley.
Williams saw in the victory justification for all her efforts
throughout her life. "I had a lot of sacrifices, I had a lot of injuries, and I had
a lot of tough losses, too," she said. "But I didn't let that get
to me. I kept working hard and I kept believing."
She believed so much she bought the ball gown just before
leaving Florida three weeks ago. "I was scrambling around the mall, finding a dress," she said.
"It was an extra incentive because if I didn't win, I wouldn't get
to wear this wonderful dress. I picked it up the day we left."
Serena bought a gown, too, thinking she might win her second
Grand Slam title. Now they both can dress up for the champions
dinner, since the sisters are in the women's doubles final Sunday.
They have already won two Grand Slam doubles titles together,
and will try for a third against Ai Sugiyama and
Julie-Halard-Decugis. They've also won two Grand Slam mixed doubles
titles apiece.
"We're racking them up now," Venus said.
At the heart of Venus and Serena's self-confidence is a sense
that anything is possible, that any goal can be achieved with
enough hard work.
Richard Williams, who grew up picking cotton in Louisiana, knew
nothing about tennis when he set out to make his daughters
champions. He bought a book on the game, studied pictures of the
proper strokes, read advice in magazines and set about to teach
Venus and Serena on public courts when they were little more than
toddlers in Compton.
When Venus was about 9 years old, he took her to Chris Evert's
house in Florida and asked if she could look at her trophies,
including the three Evert at won at Wimbledon.
"Her father came and took numerous pictures of her," Evert
recalled Saturday. "She was just thrilled to be able to touch a
Wimbledon trophy."
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