Exactly 25 years ago, the rise of a superstar was confirmed as Venus Williams won her maiden Grand Slam title in the most unconventional of circumstances.
Australian Tennis Magazine covered Williams’ Wimbledon 2000 triumph.
Has there ever been a Wimbledon coup quite so astonishing? Venus Williams missed six months of competition because of tendinitis in both wrists. She had played only nine matches this year before flying to London, having lost to Amanda Coetzer at Hamburg, Jelena Dokic in Rome, and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario in Paris.
Yet now she is the Wimbledon champion, the first black American woman to capture the game’s most coveted title since Althea Gibson in 1957-58, and no one can say she doesn’t deserve to be. In her last three matches, she overpowered Martina Hingis, the champion in 1997, her sister Serena, the reigning US Open champion, and, in the final, the defending Wimbledon champion, Lindsay Davenport 6-3 7-6(3). It was a triumph of athleticism and mental toughness over adversity.
The Williams family, mind you, has long delighted in confounding accepted wisdom. Aspiring champions are supposed to develop in junior competition, but Venus and Serena stopped playing junior matches after they found none of their contemporaries could test them. Today, they rely on coaching from their parents, Richard and Oracene, who never played competitive tennis in their lives. And though they have rarely played on grass courts, they spurned the warm-up grass tournaments before Wimbledon.
To add to the enigma, it was only three months ago that Richard Williams was hinting that both may soon retire to take up other interests.
There’s no more talk of quitting. Mr Williams and the sisters are repeating what they said when they first burst on the tennis world. They are, they say, destined to be the world No.1 and No.2 – and pretty soon.
“One or other of them will be Wimbledon champion for the next four or five years,” Mr Williams said. “Look at the opposition, Lindsay’s (Davenport) running is too slow. Martina Hingis’ legs aren’t long enough. Mary Pierce doesn’t have the confidence. It’s ours. It’s our time. It’s our day.”
Many agree, however reluctantly. “They have the capability of taking tennis to another level,” Martina Navratilova said of the physically imposing duo. “They haven’t got there yet, but they certainly have the possibility.”
Indeed, this may well have been a watershed tournament for women’s tennis. Hingis, for instance, has begun to be intimidated by the power players. She was blasted by Davenport at Melbourne Park, by Pierce at Roland Garros, and at times seemed almost apprehensive against Venus. She remains the world No.1 even though she hasn’t won a title at any of the last 10 Grand Slam championships. Will she ever win another? Or is she simply too short and too light?
When someone asked Hingis if she hadn’t been too passive against Venus (she had hit many shots tentatively short and made errors on others), she bridled.
“You want to go out there and try it yourself? If someone pressures you all the time, then suddenly you get a chance, you try to be aggressive, and you overhit. She always gets to that one extra shot, and you have to play close to the lines,” Hingis said.
The Venus Williams-Hingis quarterfinal was a case of power versus placement. Somehow, you felt Hingis was on a lost cause anyway – even if she survived Venus’ brutal blows, she’d be too spent to resist Serena in the semis. And if, by some miracle, she got through that match, too, there’d be another battering ram to overcome in Davenport.
Venus was locked in the struggle with Martina when Serena came to Centre Court to support her, having just disposed of Lisa Raymond on Court 1 for the loss of two games in 42 minutes. It took Venus two hours and 13 minutes to beat Hingis 6-3 4-6 6-4, and not until the last game, which she won to love, finishing with an ace, was the outcome certain.
There were many spectacular rallies, in which the players tested each other’s skill, stamina and nerve. While Hingis played the steadier, making fewer unforced errors, she always looked in danger from Venus’ ferocity and court speed.
In a fluctuating second set, Hingis weathered a pummelling of her backhand to level the score. Some of the rallies extended to 14 shots or more, with Hingis defending desperately and attempting to out-manoeuvre her lusty, long-legged opponent.
The balance tilted in the third set when Hingis wilted under the onslaught. “I regret that I didn’t come in a bit more,” she said. “But I didn’t have that many opportunities. She was always trying to take control of the rallies and be aggressive.”
Almost overnight, it seems, women's supremacy may not be between Davenport and Hingis, as was imagined, but between the Williams girls.