At a Wimbledon Press Conference, Serena Williams Gives a Master Class in Unapologetic Excellence
After the surprising exit of Simona Halep, Serena Williams remains the favorite to win her eighth Wimbledon title this year, a fact that she is well aware of. And why shouldn’t she be? Few athletes have proven as adept at and aware of the particular give-and-take the work/life balance being at the top of your game requires than Williams, who has starred in her own HBO docu-miniseries documenting her challenging pregnancy and harrowing birth of her daughter, Olympia, as well as a refreshingly honest look at what it’s taken for her to come back. Among the many mental, physical, and emotional trials required of a tennis superstar? Missing her daughter’s first steps while she was training.
After beating Madison Keys on Friday, Williams sat for a press conference with reporters, including the Telegraph’s Jamie Johnson, who paraphrased Keys and asked whether it was “difficult” to be Williams, “the one to beat,” because all of the athletes she plays will always up their game to be at her level. Rather than demurring or equivocating, as female athletes are often trained to do in order to remain humble-seeming and “likable,” Williams smiled ruefully. “I’m glad someone admitted that,” she said, “of course Madison does, she’s so smart and so on it. But yeah, every single match I play, whether I’m coming back from a baby, or surgery, it doesn’t matter, because these young ladies bring a game that I’ve never seen before.” It renders scouting useless, Williams said, because when they play her, it’s always a different game. “That’s what makes me great. I always play everyone at their greatest, so I have to be greater.”
“She said it must suck to be you,” Johnson added. “At first it did,” Williams said, “but now I kinda like it, because everyone plays me so hard, and now my level’s so much higher because of it, from years and years of being played like that.” In other words, never apologize for being the best. And what better lesson could there be from the greatest athlete of all time than that?
