On the Line by Serena Williams

Author:Serena Williams [Williams, Serena]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Sports, Women, Sports & Recreation, Tennis
ISBN: 9780446564021
Google: QgAHQLkOijkC
Amazon: 0446553662
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2009-08-31T23:00:00+00:00

Think. U have been writing these notes for years. Just do it. U want/NEED to win. Nothing is too hard for U. Nothing is too tough for U. It’s U and only U!!! U R part of the strongest people alive. Nothing is worse than what your grandparents and great-grandparents went through. Nothing is more difficult. Nothing. Get up, get out and make yourself/your people happy and proud!

—MATCH BOOK ENTRY

EIGHT

The So-and-So Slam

Sometimes, it takes a setback to get you jump-started and on your way; you’ll need to turn adversity to advantage if you mean to compete over the long haul. I suppose I always knew this on some level—it’s human nature in full force!—but it never really came up in all that time on the court. You’d think a thing like this would be drilled into young players, but it’s not something that can be taught or coached or anticipated. It takes a bad patch to get you to realize it for yourself. When you find yourself in the middle of some defining difficulty, you’ve got to roll with it, and figure it out on your own.

It’s like a scene from The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy learns that her ruby slippers always held the magical power to return her home, but she never knew to put that power to use until she realized that home was where she was meant to be, after all. It’s the same with me and tennis. When I was just starting out, my parents emphasized skill and fitness and strategy. When I was older, playing with different coaches for the first time, repetition and muscle memory were key. But tennis is a mental game. It has everything to do with the mind-set you take to the court and the personality you carry off of it—the mental toughness that gets talked about into the ground. Technique, fitness, muscle memory… those are a given at the professional level, but it’s what you do with your particular skill set and how you respond to the bad patches and regain your footing that sets you apart.

I didn’t know any of this going in, although if I had I don’t know that the front end of my career would have gone any differently. I mean, when I finally put two and two together here it’s not like I could click my ruby heels whenever I wanted and start winning tournament after tournament. If that’s how it worked, we’d all be trading deuce and ad points late into the night, and no player would ever grab or keep an edge because her opponent would have equal access to the very same edge. No, it’s an epiphany athletes must reach on their own terms, in their own time, and even then it’s unclear what they’ll make of it.

My first piece of personal adversity was set against our nation’s adversity—September 11, 2001. I had no special claim on the tragic events of that day, but I was in its middle. Recall that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon took place first thing on a Tuesday morning.

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