Being Serena Williams means wearing layers. No, not the catsuit. Throughout her career, she has made us privy to several of those: her race, gender, background. At the French Open this year, we saw another layer: her resilience. She was a set down against Ashleigh Barty in round two. Opening the second, she had her service broken thanks to three consecutive errors. But before you knew it, the switch flipped. Williams picked up the pace and darted forward. She piled on the aces and the forehand winners. Her intensity grew, as did her volume. She closed the match 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 with a roar that shook Court Phillipe Chatrier.
A billboard in Paris read: “The Queen is back.”
Williams came into the tournament playing only four WTA matches all year and only a short while after the complicated birth of her daughter. Following her first round win, she tweeted: “For all the moms out there who had a tough recovery from pregnancy — here you go. If I can do it, so can you.”
It has long been established that Williams is not just a tennis player. She is a political and representative figure. Her extreme experiences with the world have remade her several times. She lost a half-sister in a shooting. She almost died of pulmonary embolism. Despite her being one of the best in the game, the narrative surrounding her has often been outrageously racist and sexist. But she never shied away. In an interview with The New York Times titled “The Meaning of Serena Williams”, she explains how she doesn’t want to dissociate herself from her history and culture. “I play for me, but I also play and represent something much greater than me. I embrace that. I love that. I want that.”
Throughout this tournament, Williams embraced the challenges of motherhood in a surprising and inclusive way. She was no longer the demi-god that we made her out to be, hidden behind her legend. She was human, just like us. She opened up about the life-threatening complications following childbirth and how her recovery did not go as planned. She explained that the catsuit, though making her feel like a superhero, was actually worn to prevent blood clots. On Instagram, she posted a video where she heads to practice “with a little spit up here. This is the mom life, and I love it.”
Williams, like many athletes, has constantly asked more of her body than what it can comfortably handle. Her comeback at the French Open was unfortunately cut short after a pectoral injury forced her to withdraw before her round four match against Maria Sharapova. But if her determination and utter disappointment at her withdrawal is anything to go by, her story is far from over. Going into Wimbledon vying to equal Margaret Court’s record of 24 Grand Slam singles titles, it would not be wrong to consider Williams a superhero after all.
The writer covers tennis for The Hindu in Chennai
