Mark Hodgkinson - Serena: A graphic biography of the greatest tennis champion

A GRAPHIC BIOGRAPHY OF THE GREATEST TENNIS CHAMPION

Mark Hodgkinson

M ost infants have soft toys on the shelves of their rooms; Serenas daughter, Olympia, has a replica of the Australian Open trophy. I feel like its hers, Serena has said. After all, Olympia was on court throughout the 2017 Australian Open Serena was two months pregnant during that tournament, where she became the first woman in history to win a Grand Slam title while expecting a baby.

Iconic is a word that is used too liberally and casually not just in tennis, but in all industries. Yet Serena confirmed her status as a true tennis icon during her first trimester, taking her twenty-third Grand Slam singles title to become the most successful tennis player, man or woman, of the post-1968 Open Era. Winning a major is hard enough already just try doing so when eight weeks pregnant, when your body is undergoing enormous change, and when you know youll need to win every match in straight sets: you simply wont have the energy in the Melbourne heat for any deciding third sets.

Only Serenas inner circle knew her secret, including her future husband Alexis Ohanian, her agent Jill Smoller and her elder sister Venus. Even Serenas coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, the Frenchman who had taken her from great to history, was unaware that the American had been pregnant when she ripped through the entire fortnight, including beating Venus in the final, without dropping a set. A couple of months later, the world of tennis re-evaluated Serenas achievement when she revealed her pregnancy by accidentally posting a photo of her bump on Snapchat.

Victory broke her tie with Steffi Graf on twenty-two majors apiece. Unlike Serena though, Graf had started her family after retiring from tennis, and the German had won her Grand Slams in a more concentrated period of time, in the twelve years between 1987 and 1999. Some eighteen years had passed between Serenas first major, at the 1999 US Open, and this triumph at the Australian Open. She had won Grand Slams under four different US Presidents: Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump. At the age of thirty-five, Serena had also extended the record she herself had set, for being the oldest Grand Slam singles champion in history.

The winning of that unprecedented twenty-third Grand Slam title encapsulates several elements of Serenas story. One is her desire, from an early age, to take a giant swing at sporting history and her quest to win more Grand Slams than anyone else and this coupled with the ambition of being recognised as the greatest tennis player of all time.

Another element is how far Serena and Venus have both travelled in their tennis lives from the cracked public courts of Compton, California, where practice was occasionally broken off because of the sound of gangland shootings, to the biggest stages of all. Their success serves as a reminder of their father Richards astonishing vision and perseverance: he, who, when his daughters were no higher than a net post had predicted their global domination of the sport, in a world that had not previously known too many black champions, let alone ones from places like Compton. Richard had also forecast that Serena was the better, badder and meaner of the two, something very important to the younger Williams sister. Venus has always been so much more than sibling, friend, confidante and practice partner for Serena; she has also been her greatest rival, and the 2017 final was the ninth occasion that they had played against each other in a Grand Slam final, in a series that stretched back to the 2001 US Open.

The night was also an illustration of how Serena has had to overcome much more than her opponents; playing a Grand Slam during the early stages of pregnancy was just another challenge in a career spliced with adversity and struggle. It was mere days before the Australian Open began that she learned she was pregnant. Perhaps other leading tennis players, on discovering such news on the eve of a major, might have withdrawn, or would have played without being fully committed. That wasnt Serena. Once she had got over the initial shock, and the doctor had confirmed that there was no risk attached to competing, she resolved to win the title.

For all her greatness and career longevity, with more than twenty years in the tennis elite, little has been straightforward about Serenas career. Twice she has come close to death after developing blood clots on her lungs, and following the birth of Olympia and she has grieved for her murdered half-sister and coped with periods of depression. She has been subjected to racist abuse, on and off court, and been trolled about her body shape. There have also been freaky, unsettling injuries (one sustained while dancing in heels in a Los Angeles nightclub, and another from stepping on broken glass in a restaurant in Munich), as well as several high-profile controversies of her own making. She has been through so much that, at times, when reviewing her career, it is tempting to question how she has ever had time to fit in the tennis. Yet, from the very beginning, from the very first time she swung a racket in Compton, she has embraced that fight and struggle to achieve her dreams.

Anyone who has amassed more than twenty Grand Slam singles titles has a compelling narrative, but, with Serena, the lifting of those trophies is only one element of her story.

Pregnant with her first child, Serena didn't drop a set all tournament at the 2017 Australian Open.

GHETTO CINDERELLA

Even Serena Williams cant always separate the urban tennis myths from the reality of her days at the East Compton Hills Country Club, as her father and coach Richard used to call the cracked public courts in gangland Compton.

W hile her greatness is undisputed, there are elements of her story which may or may not be rooted in reality: what was fact and what was fiction in that city south of Los Angeles, California, far from known as a training ground for tennis champions? Serenas childhood memories are sometimes at odds with her father's recollections a man who once said that he was going to buy the Rockefeller Center in New York for $3.9 billion. The Williams sisters already had the best backstory in tennis, and that didnt need any embellishment, but Richard felt it could be improved and he was as energetic about promoting his daughters as he was about coaching them. In that he was aided and abetted by others, including the media. As Serena has observed of the stories doing the rounds in tennis: Some of them are even true.