Wednesday, 27 June, 2007
Winning major titles is all about pacing yourself. There is absolutely no point in playing your best tennis in the first round and then working backwards from there. After all, the only way from the very top is down. After winning eight grand slam singles titles, the most recent being the Australian Open in January, Serena Williams knows exactly how to husband her resources for the two weeks of the tournament. She gave herself a rating of 2/10 for her opening round performance and thought she had upped the ante to beat Alicia Molik 7-6 (7-4), 6-3. So far so good – everything was moving in the right direction. "I think out of fighting, you add all that stuff together, I give myself like a six," she said. "I played a little better today. I'm feeling better about it [my game]. I'm excited to get through today because I knew it wasn't going to be really easy at all." Molik is a feisty Australian, a competitor through and through, who once was part of the world Top 10. But just as she was establishing herself in the world's elite, she was felled by an inner ear condition that affected her vision and balance. Taking more than a year to recover, she only came back to the circuit in May last year and has been working her way back up the rankings ever since. Williams knew from experience that Molik was going to be provide much tougher opposition than her place at number 75 in the world order suggests. When the Australian nipped to a 4-1 lead in the first set, Williams knew she was in for a scrap and that she could not afford to give away cheap points with careless errors. When she failed to follow her own advice, she became increasingly angry. "I was really angry," Williams said. "I thought it was unfair that I got down so far. I was like, OK, it's just one break. But 4‑1 looks worse than one break. I thought if I could just hold and break and hold, I would be OK. "She's a tough match to play in the second round I think more than anything. She's been off a while, which is probably why she isn't seeded here. But it's not an easy second‑round match. I don't think that was unfair. Obviously I was just saying I just need to play better." When her sister Venus had been in similar trouble against Alla Kudryatseva the day before, Serena had sat at the courtside and chewed her fingernails down to the knuckles. Knowing how she would have responded in the same situation (badly and with a good deal of harrumphing), Serena was amazed at Venus's calm handling of the moment. "She's the type of person I want to be," Serena said of Venus. "You can never see if she's angry. You can never see. She doesn't have any emotion. She's just like one track. You can't read her. "Yesterday I could read her. I could tell she was frustrated. She was hitting every ball out. It was like she wasn't playing well at all. I was just thinking 'Oh, my God, I just got to tell her to stay in there, just stay focused'. "It was just one of those days that you don't want to go out in the tournament in the first round when you're playing so bad. If you could just get through this, it would get better." The sisters, then, are clearly not like two peas in a pod. But different in almost every way, they are still the best of friends. For two such competitive beings, their ability to remain chums whatever the circumstances, is quite remarkable. "I know, it's so weird," she said. "We're so close. We have complete opposite personalities almost. I guess it works well. Geminis and Libras are like a perfect match. That's what I credit it to. I'm a Libra and she's a Gemini." Whether she believes in astrology or not, it would be seem to be written in the stars that if the younger Williams sister continues to step up the pace round by round, she will take some stopping.
Written by Alix Ramsay
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