US Open 2013: Heroic Serena Williams enters folklore with win over Victoria Azarenka

Serena Williams posing with the 2013 US Open trophy

For a champion so widely renowned for her unshakeable temperament, Serena Williams sure indulges in a fair share of demented screaming during her matches. The frequent bouts of energy release do add to the ferocious, intimidating image that she presents to her opponents, but they also make you question how her game can remain consistent through these emotional peaks and valleys. How can a player want something so bad that her head seems in danger of exploding, and yet keep her hand so steady that her shots repeatedly find the lines?

Even after her 7-5, 6-7, 6-1 victory over Victoria Azarenka in yesterday’s US Open final, which gave her her fifth US Open crown and 17th Slam title overall, it’s difficult to fathom exactly how Williams manages to keep coming through despite her obviously turbulent inner self. Or maybe it’s not difficult to fathom, but only difficult to explain. Because when you think about all the mythical tales of heroes and their gladiatorial battles, you realize that it’s always the most passionate, overtly intense fighters who end up triumphing. They all seem to want it too bad, but that’s just what helps them find their target consistently enough, and what gets them over the line in the end.

It might seem a little incongruous to call Serena Williams’s game ‘consistent’, but I’d like to see anyone else take as big cuts at the ball as she does and still find the court with anything resembling regularity. Admittedly, her forehand – which she insists on hitting as hard as possible even if she is completely out of position – does occasionally expose the pitfalls of her attack-at-all-costs mindset. Midway through the second set yesterday, Williams could barely get her crosscourt forehand to reach the top half of the net, and it wasn’t difficult to see why – she kept refusing to add extra spin to counter Azarenka’s penetrating crosscourt strikes, and kept paying the price.

But Williams’s forehand is perhaps the only part of her game to which the conventional rules of geometry and probability apply. Her backhand, a shot that, like her serve, will probably go down as one of the most devastatingly effective shots in tennis history, is above all such base theories. Williams hits her backhand as flat as a whistle, and as hard as a bullet, and yet finds a way to make it consistent. She used that shot, even more so than her serve, to hurt Azarenka yesterday, and she did it all with an air of nonchalance that suggested she could have done it even with her eyes closed. Whether abruptly ending a rally by conjuring a crosscourt winner out of nowhere, opening up the court by swiping a short-angle strike that stretched Azarenka far beyond the tramlines, or unleashing a down-the-line blast that left the Belarussian flat-footed, Williams used her backhand to overcome all of her doubts and big-stage jitters.

Of course, a big part of the reason why Williams had to overcome any kind of jitters at all was Azarenka’s stellar play when backed against the wall. The Belarussian seemed to get better as the situation got bleaker, and if it were not for her relative inability to consistently create her own pace, we may have been looking at a different result.

The Belarussian seemed more in control of the first set than Williams and handled the windy conditions in the early going with more composure than her opponent, but there was always the lingering feeling that she would get blown off the court the moment Williams found her range. And that’s exactly what happened towards the end of the first set and through the first half of the second, as Williams rained down big serves and groundstrokes to push Azarenka on to her heels.

But it’s not for nothing that so many people expected this match to be close. Azarenka’s uncanny sense of anticipation, her formidable returning skills and her underrated ‘feel’ for the ball enable her to get even the hardest hit shots back in play. It’s doubtful whether any player that Williams has faced in her career has had as much success returning serve as Azarenka has in the last few matches that the two have played. When serving for the match, first at 5-4 and then again at 6-5, Williams actually did come up with some really big serves, which normally is a surefire recipe to win her a free point, or least put her on the ascendancy in the point. But Azarenka kept putting those lasers back in play; the harder Williams served, the easier Azarenka seemed to read the delivery, and the quicker she managed to put the ball at the American’s feet.

By the time the second set reached the tiebreaker, the match seemed deadlocked. With every step towards defeat that Azarenka took, her intensity seemed to increase exponentially, to the point that she started matching Williams not just stare-for-stare and scream-for-scream, but also shot-for-shot (which is physically impossible for about 99.99% of the women’s tour to do).

Williams did her fair share of choking, that’s true – her forehand chose those nervy last few minutes of the second set to break down, and she seemed clueless about what to do when her blistering serves kept coming back with interest. But she would never have been in a position to choke if it hadn’t been for Azarenka’s unwavering self-belief and accuracy off the baseline. The Belarussian, with her power-packed counterpunching style, can trouble Williams in a way that very few others on the tour can, and it won’t be surprising if one day she actually won one of these close Slam matches against the American.

That’s pure conjecture though, and a matter for the future. What probably hurts Azarenka right now is that she came close yet again, and couldn’t get the job done. But how close was it, really? A lot more than the score suggests, if the mid-match decibel levels of both players is any indication.

With Williams starting to sulk and wail and scream desperately as the second set slipped away from her, it seemed like the Belarussian had finally managed to push Williams off the edge. Although the vocal energy that Williams displayed wasn’t all negative – after saving a set point on Azarenka’s serve to even the breaker at 6-6, she let out an almighty roar that seemed capable of shaking the very foundations of the cavernous Arthur Ashe stadium – there was no mistaking the fact that Azarenka had wrested control of the tempo of the match. Williams duly followed that saved set point with a couple of baseline errors, and Azarenka had all the momentum going into the third set.

That moment, of course, is when Williams decided to unfurl the last trick up her sleeve, a trick that no one knew existed in the early part of her career – her ability to adapt her game to the demands of the situation. Realizing that her flat strikes were not only coughing up errors in the wind but also playing right into her pace-loving opponent’s hands, she started putting a bit more air into her serve and forehand. Relying on placement and angles more than sheer brute force, she got stuck into the rallies and dared Azarenka to go for more. Williams continued to hit the cover off the ball with her backhand, but the sudden change in the pace and trajectory of her forehand threw the Belarussian off, and led to a string of errors that ultimately cost her the match.

The 2013 US Open final will likely be remembered mainly for two things: its historical significance (17th Slam, 5th US Open and all that jazz), and Williams’s inability to serve out the match not just once but twice. But there are other things about the match that deserve to be remembered too; things that are primarily concerned with the ability of the two protagonists to make constant, and occasionally drastic, adjustments. Adjustments to accommodate to the opponent’s pace of shot, adjustments to withstand the effect of wind on their own shots, and perhaps more importantly, adjustments to arrest their own inner struggles.

Serena Williams jumping for joy after her victory

Williams and Azarenka had to battle against more than just the opponent through the tense, 2hr 45min battle. And while that may true of all tennis matches, and most sporting encounters in general, what makes this match stand out was the very conspicuous way that the two players went about their adjustments. Azarenka put her head down and muttered to herself more fiercely with each passing moment of the second set; Williams, on the other hand, gave herself elaborate reprimands as her errors mounted in the second set, and visibly forced herself to remain calm as she attempted to regroup in the third.

Finally, there was the most striking adjustment of all – Williams celebrating the win by furiously jumping up and down, and letting loose with a series of thundering ‘Come on!’s. She had kept her emotions pent up for almost the entire third set, and needed some release. Did she want the win a little too much, even after all these years and 16 Majors? She probably did, which explains the mid-match vocal shenanigans that she put on display.

Like the heroes of our legendary tales, Serena Williams often finds herself in a position where she wants something so bad that she seems in danger of self-combustion. And since we never question how those mythical gladiators managed to keep their heads and get to their destination, we shouldn’t question how Williams does it either.

We should just accept it, and celebrate it, as a mark of true greatness.