Serena Williams teases return to competitive tennis, says Tom Brady ‘started a really cool trend’ Read more
She does it by taking more strokes off the ground. Williams plays to her strengths, to the ones she knows she can deliver. She doesn’t do it by thinking about what others might do, or what the sport has been: Williams plays for her body and her mind. It’s the sort of thing you have to keep reminding yourself over and over: sometimes, you really just have to believe that the way you move is the way you have to move.
“I used to think that I have to be aggressive to be aggressive,” Williams says. “You watch the great players. There is a reason why they are great. I’m not thinking about it. There’s more to me than that right now.”
There is more to Williams than just hitting with her back to the ball with a swagger and a smile on her face. She’s also a mother of three-year-old twins, Mackenzie and Alexis. She’s a veteran of four Grand Slam titles she won in 2009, 2011 and 2013. She’s won three majors at French Open and Wimbledon. She’s won a clay court Grand Slam, which, in case you’re confused, in French means you win five sets in a row, which she did in 2010. Oh, and she’s also been an Olympic gold-medal runner.
The women’s tour has not looked great in the past 12 months, one reason why the women’s tournament hasn’t been ranked high on USAToday.com’s “Power Rankings” since March 2015. The women are not doing well – that’s why USAToday’s rankings have not been as high as the men’s for the past 12 months. But there is a reason why we’re having this conversation: the women’s game has a lot of potential, a lot of potential to be a big story in sports over the next four years, a potential that is just beginning to be realized.
That potential is, in no small part, going to play out in front of us for the next five months. That’s when the US Open, Wimbledon, the Australian Open