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WIMBLEDON, England – The formidable soul who walked through the door and up the steps to the sleek Wimbledon interview room on Saturday turned out to be Serena Williams, a name that could ring a bell and a presence she can make make a Wimbledon feel more. complete. Turns out he couldn’t stand the idea that the last Wimbledon was his last Wimbledon.
“It was a lot of motivation, to be honest,” he said of his truncated 2021 Wimbledon, when he opened a game on the center court, played 3-3 in a first set with Aliaksandra Sasnovich and then went lose your footing. he felt the buckle of his right leg and walked away with various forms of pain. “You know, she’s a great champion, and it’s a sad story,” Sasnovich said that day, his own father telling him he had long dreamed he could oppose Williams on the center court.
The rest of that Wimbledon and the long career of the top three have since been left without Williams, leaving minds both intrusive and rational to intuit the impending retirement. Still, all the while, that miserable match number 111 of a 23-year career at Wimbledon would not serve for an end and “it was always something that, since that match ended, was always in my head.” , Williams said, and something that “Absolutely” provided a boost through the work of training. Here, then, comes the match number 112 and 24 years old in the first round on Tuesday against Harmony Tan, a 24-year-old Frenchwoman, number 113.
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Williams ranks No. 1,204, making her probably the best player in the history of the sport at No. 1,204. He once won an Australian Open (2007) from a ranking of 81. In doubles with Ons Jabeur at Eastbourne last week and in training, he said: “I felt more prepared than I thought I would like to do. a month or two months ago. or three months ago. Much more. “
He said he had struggled last summer to participate in the 2021 U.S. Open, but his hamstring player protested and realized that “I won’t make it,” so he “hung up his snowshoes.” he said “an injury difficult to have.” (“It wasn’t fun,” he said.) So over the next few months, “I don’t know,” he said. “I did not retire. I just needed to heal myself physically, mentally and yes, I had no plans, to be honest. I didn’t know when I would return, I didn’t know how I would return, and obviously Wimbledon is a great place to be and it has worked. “
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Unprepared to close his career at Wimbledon with a 98-13 match record, seven titles and four finalists, he has returned to his 40s, returned to individual tennis for the first time since that sad 3-3, and l ‘back sounds more like. Tiger Woods at the Masters and PGA Championship when this fellow star assessed whether he was capable of winning.
“You know the answer to that,” Williams said to a question about what could be a good outcome here.
With a laugh in the room, he added, “Come on, now.”
He said: “I have high goals, but also, we will see. I’m not going to answer that. “
He deployed this right not to answer on two questions, the Roe Vs. Wade of the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday and the All England Club’s April decision banning the participation of Russian and Belarusian players this year due to the invasion of Ukraine. A Roe Vs. Wade said, “Yeah, I think that’s a very interesting question. I have no thoughts I’m willing to share about that decision.” On Ukraine, he said: “Another heavy issue involving a lot of politics, as far as I understand, and government, and I will move away from that.”
He spoke fondly of multiple issues: his year virtually out of the game, his surprise at having a film he helped produce (“King Richard”) nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, commitment to her job as an investor. “It’s been totally different, honestly,” he said. “Part of me feels like it’s a little more of my life now than tournaments,” and he laughed slightly at that.
“When you have a venture company, you have to do it all, and it definitely takes me literally all of my extra time,” he said. “It simply came to our notice then. I am currently out of the office for the next few weeks. If you send me an email, you’ll get the notification “out of the office,” he said in quotes. “I absolutely love what I do. I love investing in companies. And then the Oscars were a lot of fun, just the whole tour, the whole tour of that whole moment was amazing to be a part of such an amazing movie, it was something I don’t think about. At best, you’re thinking of winning a Grand Slam, not being nominated for an Oscar for a film you produced, so it was pretty impressive. “
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When asked about mental health, he looks at his own longevity, which he now attributes to his wisdom in his number of tournaments at the time. “There are often times when I think, unconsciously, that I’m taking breaks,” he said. “I never played as much as the next player in my entire career. And I think it was all subconscious, I took care of myself and I knew how to take care of myself. And a lot of people have to learn that, and I think that was something that my parents incorporated into me, because it was already programmed into me, and so it was something that I always did naturally. “
She is now 40 years old and is here, and as France Open finalist Coco Gauff said on Saturday: “I think as long as she participates in a tournament, she is always an aspirant to win even though she hasn’t played for a year.” Then, from there, Williams said, “Who knows where he’ll show up next? You have to be prepared.”