Cynthia Lum/WireImage.comSerena
covets another major. FROM THE BANK OF THE WEST CLASSIC
– A blue collar-type Serena Williams showed up at Stanford and this
time, she'll actually played.
The last time that Williams appeared near the courts of Taube Stadium
was for the 1999 Fed Cup final against Russia, when just coming off her
maiden Slam title run at the US Open, she chose to sit and watch her older
sister Venus and Lindsay Davenport do the heavy lifting in singles and
then played a dead rubber doubles contest with Venus.
She had entered Stanford three other times before this year and pulled
out all three times, either from injury or just being flat out tired or
disinterested after a long Wimbledon campaign.
But this year appears to be different all around for eight-time Grand
Slam champion. She's played as many tournaments through the first seven
and half months of the season than she ever has since 2002 and is planning
on putting herself through a meat grinder the rest of the summer: including
the four matches she played last week for the World TeamTennis Washington
capitals, if she makes it to the second week of the US Open, she will
have played 9 out of 11 weeks.
Her upcoming schedule reads like this: Stanford, Los Angeles and Montreal,
a week off before the Olympics, and then another week after Beijing
before the US Open. For a player whom some consider to be disinterested
in her sport, she's spending an enormous amount time on court.
"I'm feeling good," the fifth ranked Williams told TennisReporters.net.
"I have goals and have almost no points coming off this summer, because
last summer I injured my thumb. I can only move ahead. I have to take
my chances and opportunities."
The expressive Serena is still smarting a little due to her Wimbledon
defeat at the hands of her older sister, Venus. Her face is hall of mirrors,
where you can see her full range of emotions reflecting back and forth.
She doesn't understand why she's been unable to come up with her best
stuff at the Slams in '08.
"I still look like that?" she asked when told that her downtrodden
face was betraying what was piping out of her vocal cords, which said
that she quickly got over her high-level defeat to Venus in the Wimbledon
final.
Serena takes her losses very hard and although she agrees that her level
has been consistently high this year (except at the "terrible"
French), she missing that little extra something. Maria Sharapova, Ana
Ivanovic and Venus have won Slams this year. Serena owns three WTA title
in 2008, but none of them were majors and not only does she believe
that she belongs in the same conversation as the aforementioned threesome,
she thinks she should be the one leading it.
Williams is very hard on herself, perhaps not getting as much satisfaction
as she should out of winning Bangalore, Miami and Charleston, and slashing
herself too deeply for losing Jelena Jankovic in Australia, Katarina Srebotnik
at Roland Garros and then Venus at Wimbledon.
"I can't say I'm pleased with my year because I haven't won any Grand
Slams this year," Williams said. "That's always been the goal
for me, but my main goal is to stay healthy. If I can do that, than I'm
fine. I didn't play well in Australia, the French I shot myself in the
foot and Wimbledon I couldn't get it together in the final. So I have
to win something eventually. I feel like I should be able to win for the
most part and sometimes I get disgusted because I didn't make the right
shots, or made a lot of errors, or did silly stuff. I don't like to lose.
I'm a perfectionist and feel like I should be the best at what I do."
She has been the best many times, but hasn't been this season. Ivanovic
and Sharapova played better at two of three Slams, and Venus was just
as good as she was (which wasn't great) in Australia and showed her little
sister that on grass, she simply has more weapons. Plus, Venus trusts
her game at Wimbledon much more than she does anywhere else - hence her
nearly six-year losing streak at the other Slams. Serena is more solid
all around and likes a bit more time to set up for the ball.
"The conditions were unbelievable and she was able to keep it together,"
Serena said of Wimbledon. "It was cool for her. Venus played better
than I did, but I didn't play my best. She plays really good on grass
and I play really good on hardcourts."
If Serena doesn't win a Slam title or an Olympic gold medal this season,
she'll consider it a lost year. The first seven months of the season have
been productive to her biomechanics as she's put in the time, but she
hasn't come away with the big prizes that she believes should be hers.
She's figuring that if she puts in the work that eventually, it will play
off. She knows that deep down that she'll never be an out and out dominator
again because the competition is too stiff, but if she finds a style that
suits and pleases her -and she's been struggling with that this year -
a dozen Slam crowns are possible by the time she hangs up her rackets.
"The Olympics and US Open are hovering," she said. " I
think I'll be ready for them."
The Olympics is a huge goal, because she's never played singles there,
and if she wins the singles crown, she'll have her own, non-calendar
year Golden Slam. Steffi Graf had a real one back in 1988, but of her
generation, even Justine Henin and Venus, the last two gold medalists,
were unable to pull that off. "That would mean a lot to me," Serena
said.
Maybe Serena should take a little pressure off herself, because it sure
seemed like in Paris and London that she was tense in her losses. She
played very well against Venus, except at closing time, when Venus smelled
blood and Serena spilled it. Up until the last year and half, Serena
has been a consummate closer, but Henin got into her head last year
and she has been unable to shake the feeling that there may be players
out there who are just as tough. When her play doesn't match her bravado,
she twists her own psyche into a pretzel.
"You can only try your best and sometimes you take losses, and maybe
some people can accept that, but that's not my attitude," she said.
"I'm not the type of person who can say I'm happy after a loss. Nothing
can make me that way."
Cynthia Lum/WireImage.comBartoli
shed tears for Fed..Bartoli Weeps for Federer
After losing in the third round of Wimbledon to Bethanie Mattek, Marion
Bartoli took some time off and hung out at the pool. But the tennis-aholic
couldn't resist turning on the TV and watching both finals. She was devastated
after her hero, Roger Federer, went down to Rafael Nadal in five sets.
"It was really a heartbreaker for me," she said. "I cried
after it. I was so disappointed. I'm a Roger fan and when you are fan
you want him to win. I thought he had the match in his hands and he let
it slip. It was hard. Maybe it was harder for him, but it was hard for
me as well. I was so stressed. Sometimes I couldn't watch it, it was so
much pressure."
Was she happy at all for Nadal?
"No, not even a little bit."
Bartoli keeps close tabs on Federer and said that she heard that he was
really depressed after the match, but the next day, he was laughing and
on vacation.
"I think he recovered better than me because I was down for three
days afterward," she said. "I think he's going to win the Olympics
and US Open."
The sixth seed at Stanford, Bartoli overcame Akgul Amanmuradova 6-1 6-3
in the first round, only her 13th win this year in 29 tries. Amanmuradova
has a fair amount of variety for a super tall powerballer, but she's very
erratic. She's also extremely vulnerable on the run.
Now Bartoli is looking at the rest of the year as a new season, one where
she won't be called the former Wimbledon finalist. She hasn't played like
one and her ranking has dropped to No. 15.
She said that the pressure of being the AELTC runner-up crushed her mentally.
"It's a big relief," said Bartoli, who is entering her favorite
part on the season on hardcourts. "I've had this on my shoulders
for one year and it wasn't easy to handle it. Everyone reminded me of
my Wimbledon final and how hard it was going to be for me to defend it.
Now I can look at it as maybe a new year for me."
Lindsay Davenport pulled out of the tournament with a re-occurrence of
right knee injury that she sustained just prior to Wimbledon and is doubtful
for next week's event in LA, too. She played doubles and mixed in World
Team Tennis last weekend for the Newport Breakers, but when she tried
to run at Stanford during practice, she felt pain again. It's going to
be a very long road to the Olympics.
Portuguese phenom Michelle Larcher de Brito, 15, qualified for her first
main draw and will face Argentine Gisela Dulko. She beat Marta Domachowska
6-0, 6-1. Japan's Ai Sugiyama took down American Alexa Glatch 6-2, 3-6,
7-5 and will face fourth seed Daniela Hantuchova. On Tuesday, '07 Stanford
finalist Sania Mirza of India will play British qualifier Anne Keothavong.
