Serena's passion still burns bright

By Sue Mott
Last Updated: 3:24am BST 23/05/2007

Serena Williams does not want to die. Not again, anyway. It was a distressing experience, and not one she would like to repeat in a hurry.

"A plane crashed into a building I was in and I ended up dying. It was pretty sad. It upset me when I watched it. I thought: 'I don't want to die any more'. I thought it would be cool but it made me realise dying isn't all it's cracked up to be, especially as I could see the effect it had on other people." She died exquisitely - "I thought it was one of my better roles" - during an episode of American hospital drama ER last year. There was a lot of screaming, hysterics and blood, which is pretty familiar territory to those who know their women's tennis. Only this week, Serena Williams, in her other guise as tennis superstar, was in trouble for venting her frustration in Rome on a tennis ball which almost caused bodily harm to a line judge.

She promptly disarmed her critics with a fulsome confession. "Thank God, I didn't hit her. I felt so bad. I think I need to go to anger-management classes." This, while nursing another deep controversy that fascinated the Italian press: having her hair cut short. A sort of Posh-esque bob dyed black. She calls it her "rebel look".

Nothing could be more appropriate because, in 2007, the younger of the terrorising Williams sisters has taken a sledgehammer to the accepted wisdom that her love of tennis is cooling. No such thing. She won the Australian Open in January, crushing Maria Sharapova 6-1, 6-2 in a final that lasted only 63 minutes. She swept the benighted Russian aside again 6-1, 6-1 in the quarter-finals of the Sony Ericsson Open in Florida. By coincidence, Sharapova has not been seen since. To the imperious former No 1, this is clearly worse for her image than when the news broke at Wimbledon that she was a stamp collector.

Meanwhile, Williams was starring in her own reality Rocky movie. Down 0-6 in the first set to Justin Henin in the final, Serena fought back like a racket-wielding tigress, staving off two match points and ultimately winning 0-6, 7-5, 6-3. "Even though I was down, I was never out. I kept fighting. It was important not to surrender. I never threw up the white flag." Those are trademark sentences from the woman who owns eight grand slam singles titles. So is "Uh-huh" when she is far from taken by your line of questioning. Like her groundstrokes, her monosyllables can pack pure menace. You have to be on your guard. One, for disapproval and two, for concussion by earring when she kisses you hello. The Williams sisters have always gone the route of major jewellery. The earrings in Rome looked like something Claudius might have presented to his favourite gladiators.

For all her new poise, results and maturity, there is something still a little nutty about Serena. She is the first to admit it. "Mmmm, I'm actually still really bouncy. I've just been playing video games in my room that I'm obsessed with. A tennis game. I play games all day and night. Old arcade games. I watch a lot of animation programmes. I'm a big kid, really. I just put on a show." The show has been running for some time. It is 12 years since she turned professional at the age of 14, trying to catch up with her bigger sister, Venus, and the plot lines have been scarcely credible, featuring tragedy, comedy, world dominance and owning a dog with anorexia. This last may not be entirely true, but it is her only explanation for the slenderness of the Jack Russell, Jackie, with whom she shares her travels. (Note to police: she is not bringing Jackie to Wimbledon. No arrest necessary.)

She was in Rome for the Italian Open. where she lost yesterday to Patty Schnyder - only her third defeat this year. But it may be a blip, not a change of tack. She is still on course for the French Open, which she won in 2002. Those were the days of her apparent invulnerability. Her role model was less Chris Evert than Thor. By January 2003 she held the four grand slam titles simultaneously. Then ennui and acting appeared to set in. She suffered chronic problems with her left knee and would disappear from the scene for months on end, only to pop up in a soap opera on TV. She would make comebacks, win the Australian Open and then disappear again. Last year, she missed Wimbledon and dropped out of the top 100 for the first time in a decade.

Game over, it was assumed. The assumption was wrong. Her career didn't die, it was just on pause. This is a rehabilitation, not a resurrection. After dabbling in many different fields, it is as though the youngest Williams has decided she likes tennis best, after all. Most notably, the feeling of destroying the opposition.

"I enjoy winning more than anything. That's the thing about me. I always think I can win, but sometimes I struggle because I'm injured. I always say that when I'm playing well, no one can beat me. I'm not just saying that to sound full of myself or anything, but it's true.

"No one can beat me. That's just a fact. You have to work hard to reach your best. You can't do that by just showing up and playing. People say I do that, but it's not true. I do a lot of training." She does not like to boast, but she is a superstar. "Well, I don't think I'm not one. I was thinking the other day it would be nice to vacation like a normal person, but I'm never going to have that life. I'm definitely not normal. I'm never going to be able to do normal things. Does that make me a superstar?"

She was No 1 in the world 2002-3, and lately she has been remembering how it suited her. "It felt good to be the best player in the world. The best player on this whole earth. It's a cool feeling. It makes you want to stay there. It definitely makes me want to get it back." This competitive desire and her natural aggression have combined to rock the Sony Ericsson women's tour again. Just when they thought it was safe. So far this year only the Belgian, Henin, has demonstrated the sheer bloody-mindedness to hang around on court when Williams is at her most bullish and belligerent. She does intimidation like some women bat eyelashes. It is just a reflex, an integral part of her make up.

She does sometimes wonder what this will do for her love life. "The guy who tells me what to do is obviously going to have a real problem." She laughs infectiously, threatening the stability of her cup of mint tea. "Not because I'm strong, but because I'm really stubborn. I need a strong man, because I'm like a bull. Really stubborn. I mean, I've got to work on me if I want to settle down. Because I think that's my problem.

"I've been spoilt. Not just in the way I treat myself but by being a strong woman as well as being the baby of the family. I've been making my own money since I was 14. So, marriage, I don't know. The older I get, the more scared I get. I should have done it when I was younger. It gets harder. Because I don't want a second-time-around guy. Well, you never know. But I would prefer him not to be married before. As long as he's nice." A confessional grin breaks out on her face. "I've been dreaming about a movie star I know." Well, who? "I can't tell you, in case he reads this and then I would die of embarrassment." Shouldn't she, in that case, pluck up the courage to ask him out. "No he's always dating these models." She invests the word with suitable scorn and regret. Then rallies. "Who's not in love with a movie star, though?"

Besides love and tennis, there is still plenty in her life. "I feel like I've lived more than one life, and I'm still only 25. I've never been one to say my life is only about tennis. It's much deeper than that. It's about loving. I would say tennis was about 'this big' in the whole world." She put her thumb and forefinger close together to demonstrate the Lilliputian size of the sport. "But sometimes you can't see that unless you get on the outside." Putting earthy matters into perspective is partly the role of her religion - she and her family are Jehovah's Witnesses - and partly inspired by the death of her elder half-sister, Yetunde, who was murdered nearly four years ago as a by-product of the gang wars that infested the suburb of Los Angeles where all five of the Williams sisters were raised.

"I'm not more philosophical as I get older. I find I get less. I don't think about the future as much. I just live for the day. This is not really the right attitude. But you never know what will happen tomorrow. Just live for the day. It's probably sub-consciously a reaction to my sister's death. Obviously it was a shock to the whole family, and we've been trying to cope ever since. Suddenly to lose the sister I'd known since she changed my diapers. Who I spoke to every day. Now I don't have her.

"We keep her memory alive through her three kids. They live with my mom now. We say to them: 'You look like your Mom when you do that'. Or, 'Do you know what her favourite colour was?' We do it to keep her memory fresh in their minds. The youngest was only five or six when she was killed."

When the younger Williams won the Australian Open this time, immediately after the least successful year of her career, she dedicated the victory to the memory of Yetunde. It was a comeback no one predicted. Perhaps not even her. She says now, "It just all came together." But there was more to it than the casual convergence of forehands, health and will. She and her sister remain part of a phenomenon, a family from Compton, LA, that has produced more and better female tennis players in a couple of years than Britain has in a century.

Someone told Serena she could do anything. She has believed them with missionary zeal ever since.

Endearingly honest, she once told the press, who are apt to be critical, that her conditioning was less than desired: "I think it's all because I have a large bosom and a large ass." This has to be refreshing in an age where sylph-like singer Lily Allen is having a fit of the public vapours and threatening surgery because she imagines she's fat.

Serena's father, Richard, now divorced from her mother, Oracene, once tantalised his audience with the prediction that his daughters would probably give up tennis at 23, having conquered all its peaks. "I guess not. Turns out I like the competition. I like to be competitive. I like to win. I'm good at tennis. I like acting a lot, too. But I would say it's my second-favourite thing after tennis." Words to strike fear into the women now preparing for the physical toil of France and Wimbledon. Serena has got interested again. And no distractions. Certainly not the distraction of babies.

Despite sharing the experience of her best friend, and physio, having a baby, there is nothing remotely broody about her. "I wanted to be there for her. And now I don't want to be there for mine.

"I was just about one of those people that screams and faints. It was a struggle. Hard to take. My idea is that we should take all the young women in America to watch a birth and that would solve all the problems of under-age mothers." She is giggling again. Perhaps the unique case of a human being who is simultaneously the sledgehammer and the nut.

"concussion by earring" roflmao

Thanks :ok:

"her role model was less Chris Evert than Thor" :lmaao: