SERENA WILLIAMS DOES IT AGAIN: “choke”. Last year she was on the verge of making history, win all the Grand Slam tournaments in the world in a calendar year. She choked, losing to a low ranked player. Pressure! None whatsoever, she screamed. I chronicled her response as untrue, to the “Nth” degree.
She took off four months, and came back to the first Grand Slam for the new year 2016. She was unbelievable for the past 13 days, this January, putting fear in each opponent, especially Maria Sharapova, whom she destroyed, where Maria did not want to shake hands, as is customary, at the end of a match.
Serena is now in the finals, to win her 7th Australian open, the match Steffi Graff -Agassi who has 22 singles titles in women’s tennis. Andrea Kerber, (a fellow German as Steffi) idolizes Steffi, but has never won a grand slam; there is nothing about her game to make Serena give any consideration, this should be a cake walk for Serena.
Low and behold, Serena loses, making 46 unforced errors, Kerber 11. What is going on here? Serena probably should have had a talk with Jesse Owens wife, before the game.
Much criticism has been heaped on the head of Serena’s father Richard Williams, his bold, aggressive, take no prisoners approach to tennis, and its establishment. But during his hands on involvement with his daughters while they played, the girls won; now that they have deviated from his approach, they win the big ones, not so often.
Tennis is not a team sport, there are no second chances, there is no 4th quarter, mental steadfastness is more important that physical. I remember Zina Garrison who had a chance to beat Steffi Graff at Wimbledon, she was ahead, but lost her mind, made errors down the stretch and lost. Zina has not been the same since.
African Americans, or people of color making history in tennis, you can count on one hand. Serena Williams has the game, the power, but not the mind to win at all costs. She does not put in her mind a model to enable her to be astronomical; to “be like Mike”, and soar over the competition.
Theculturepagedotcom 