Serena, Venus and Tiger — sport can’t go wrong

By Art Spander

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Murphy’s Law? The contrived one that says anything that can go wrong will go wrong? It’s been drop-kicked out of site. Or rolled into the cup for a birdie. Or maybe served into the back court for an ace. If you’re running a sporting event this weekend, everything is going right.

College basketball needs no help, certainly. March Madness has arrived with the conference championships and then Selection Sunday. But it’s the individual sports that get buried this time of year. Unless...

Unless out of nowhere Serena Williams, in her comeback, has to play sister Venus in a third-round match of the BNP Paribas tournament. Unless Tiger Woods, in his comeback, enters the final round of the Valspar Championship a shot out of the lead.

This is a TV producer’s dream. Who doesn’t care? Who won’t watch? It’s as if we stepped back into time, when all you knew about golf was Tiger or about tennis the Williams sisters. A distant replay brought into 2018.

Never mind the purists. The late team owner and promoter Bill Veeck said if he had to depend on baseball fans for his financial support he’d be out of business by Mother’s Day. It’s the fringe crowd that makes our games what they are, who drive up the Nielsen ratings.

Can Venus, who will be 38 in June, knock off younger sister Serena, who’s returned to the game after what amounted to a 14-month maternity leave? Can Tiger, who missed the better part of two years with back troubles, earn a PGA Tour victory for the first time in four and a half years?

One event, the golf, is at Palm Harbor, Florida; the other, the tennis, is next door to Palm Desert, California, where the action Saturday night was delayed when rain moved in from Los Angeles, 125 miles away.

Venus, who hasn’t won this year — she was eliminated in the first round of the Australian Open — was first on Stadium Court One, defeating Sorana Cirstea of Romania, 6-3, 6-4, and was very unemotional about the victory, especially when someone pointed out that she could meet Serena — which she will after Serena’s 7-6 (5), 7-5 victory over Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands.

Yes, the irony of a Williams-Williams match at Indian Wells was unavoidable. In 2001, when they were supposed to play each other in a semifinal here, Venus withdrew four minutes before the match was to begin. The next day, when Serena faced Kim Clijsters in the final, the crowd booed her. Father Richard Williams said the booing was racist. Neither Williams returned to Indian Wells until Serena ended the boycott in 2015.

“I literally didn't even think about it,” said Serena, who is 36, and of course, as the world knows, mother of a seven-month-old daughter. “That's, you know, totally gone out of my mind. First of all, 17 years ago seems like forever ago. Yikes.

“I wish it were a little bit later (in the tournament) but just happy to still be in the tournament at this point. I would prefer to play someone else, anybody else, literally anybody else, but it has to happen now. So it is what it is.”

Which happens to be a popular phrase of Tiger Woods.

Venus always has been the more structured, more protective of the Williams sisters. And, just like Tiger, her interviews are not particularly newsworthy. Asked her mindset if indeed she was to play Serena, Venus said, “She’s playing really well and just honing her game.”

Even though at the time Serena had played only one match, two days earlier, since winning the Australian Open in January 2017 — her 23rd Grand Slam victory.

“Obviously I have to play better than her,” said Venus, “and see how the match goes.” The way the other 28 official matches between them have gone is 17 wins for Serena, 11 for Venus. From the 2002 French through 2003 Australian, they met in four straight Grand Slam finals, Serena winning all four.

The way the Williamses dominated women’s tennis was the way Tiger Woods, 79 victories, 14 majors, dominated men’s golf. They were the ones who kept us paying attention. On the weekend the clocks move forward — but golf and tennis, in a sense, have gone backward.

“Greatest Momma” Serena comes back with a win

By Art Spander

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Subtle it wasn’t. Not when her husband paid for four billboards east of Palm Springs, one announcing “GREATEST MOMMA OF ALL TIME.” Not when she posted a video gushing, “My comeback is here.”

But successful it was, and in tennis, in sport, isn’t that what matters most?

Serena Williams, 23 times a Grand Slam winner, one time a mother — and that one time has kept her from playing on the WTA Tour for 14 months — made her comeback Thursday night at the BNP Paribas Open, defeating Zarina Diyas of Kazakhstan, 7-5, 6-3.

“It was meant to be, coming on International Women’s Day,” said Williams, a feminist as well as a champion. Maybe so, but Serena struggled against a lady she had beaten twice and who is 53rd in the rankings.

“It definitely wasn’t easy,” Williams said post-match to a crowd that on a 68-degree evening maybe half-filled the 16,100-seat main stadium at Indian Wells Tennis Garden.

“But it was good,” she said, adding, “I’m a little rusty.”

And like golfer Tiger Woods in this winter of comebacks, understandably so.

It’s one thing to drop off the tour for any length of time. It’s another to give birth, by Caesarian section, develop blood clots, and then need to take care of an infant daughter.

But all is well, for Serena; for daughter Alexis Olympia, now some seven months old; and for father Alexis Ohanion, Sr., founder of the social news website Reddit, who a few weeks ago created the billboards along Interstate 10 dedicated to his bride.

Tennis and golf are built on stars, the rich and famous. And as his return has boosted galleries and TV ratings, there’s nobody more famous in men’s golf than Tiger, even at age 43. There’s nobody more famous in women’s tennis than Serena, age 36.

In America, at least, nobody comes close to Serena, as a winner, a fan favorite and an attraction. When you’re known by just one name, as is Serena, or Tiger, you’re queen or king of the hill, top of the heap.

Serena needed no extra promotion coming into this match, which was preceded by a glamorized exhibition (on ESPN, naturally) and a team competition in which Serena linked with her 37-year old sister, Venus.

When you get as many stories in People magazine as you do in Sports Illustrated, there’s no question why her return was major news, especially in the California desert, which with all the movie folk seems like just another part of Hollywood, 140 miles to the west.

Serena won the Australian Open in January 2017, eight weeks pregnant at the time, as she and we found out. Then she was told to give up competitive tennis until after the baby was born. She did that.

Diyas, 24, served to open the match against Williams, and both women held serve until it was 5-5. You heard a few plaintive wails from the less-expensive seats on high — “Come on, Serena; let’s go Serena.” And finally in the 11th game, Serena broke serve for a 6-5 lead.

After that, Williams settled down.

“It’s so hard when you haven’t been playing matches,” said Williams after the victory — long after, having showered and dressed.

She said she almost cried before the match having to leave her daughter and go on court. “But playing at night made it easier, because I knew she was sleeping.”

Early on, it seemed Serena was sleeping. On the contrary, she was adjusting. The moves, the responses developed over the years, had to be relearned.

“It’s totally expected,” she said. “I’m not going to be where I want to be.”

Where she wants to be presumably is where she was. Time takes its toll, certainly, yet the triumphs of Roger Federer, at 39, show that age no longer is the barrier it used to be.

“I felt I had nothing to lose,” she said of the return. “I didn’t feel the stress I had felt. I was just happy to be here, like when I was young and just starting on Tour. Just excited to be here.”

As tennis, and all of sport, is to have her here.

No ‘next man up’ in tennis

By Art Spander

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — The words went straight to the heart and — no less important in today’s sporting world — the television ratings. “Sadly, I have to withdraw from the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells and the Miami Open,” said Serena Williams in a statement.

Of course it was in a statement. That’s the way stars dole out bad news these days. In a statement, or in the case of Tiger Woods, on his web site. As little direct contact as possible.

So we accept it. The way Serena has to accept her knee problems.

The way people in charge of the BNP tennis event have to accept the reality that the world’s No. 1 women’s player will not be entering what is the sport’s first big event since the Australian Open, which Serena won, defeating older sister Venus in a historic final.

The way that golf people accept that Tiger Woods is battling the same difficulties as Serena, relative old age leading to constant ailments that never heal.

There's nobody to blame. There are injuries in every sport, as we’re all too aware with Kevin Durant. “Next man up” is the litany. The trouble in individual sports, dependent on stars and personalities, sports without team loyalty, is there may not be a “next” man or woman.

There’s only one Serena. Only one Tiger.

The older you get, the more you’re injured. The fact is undeniable. The years of swinging a tennis racquet or golf club take their toll.

Tiger was different, special. He brought non-golfers to golf, attracted a new, expanded following, crossed ethnic and social barriers.

It wasn’t the game itself that proved fascinating. Some didn’t know a birdie from a bogey. But they knew Tiger.

Knew he was winning, knew he was spectacular, knew he was unique.

Now Tiger, 41, after two back surgeries, rehab and painful attempts at playing, is idled in Florida.

Three weeks ago in the Genesis Open, the former Los Angeles Open, an event benefitting the Tiger Woods Foundation, an event for which Woods was the unofficial host, he was ordered by his doctor not even to appear at Riviera Country Club to address the media but to stay horizontal. That’s serious.

Serena’s condition, the left knee that bothered her at the U.S. Open last summer, seems less critical. However, Williams is 35 and has had knee troubles in the past. That she waited until two days ago to announce her withdrawal from the BNP Paribas is somewhat bewildering. Did she think the knee would heal in a few days when she hadn’t played in a tournament since the Australian at the end of January?

Indian Wells already was missing Victoria Azarenka, on maternity leave; Maria Sharapova, who has one month left in her 15-month suspension for taking a drug banned by the WTA but available in her native Russia; and two-time Wimbledon champ Petra Kvitova, recovering from stab wounds inflicted during a robbery of her apartment in the Czech Republic just before Christmas.

The advice in these situations from some is not to write about those who aren’t in a tournament but those who are. Yet Serena and Sharapova truly are bigger than their sport, just as Tiger is in his. They can’t be ignored. 

People who wouldn’t cross the street, or the base line, to watch tennis would very happily choose to see Williams. Or Sharapova.

Even in team sports it’s all about the individual, about Tom Brady or Steph Curry or Alex Ovechkin, the stars who make the money and the headlines, which certainly describes Serena.

Bill Veeck, the late team owner and promoter, used to say if you had to depend on baseball fans for support “you’d be out of business by Mother’s Day.” You’d better bring in the curious, the outsiders.

Veeck did it with gimmicks, sending a midget, Eddie Gaedel, to bat for the St. Louis Browns, holding disco night with the Chicago White Sox.

Tennis has to rely on famous players. In America, maybe the world, there’s no woman tennis player as famous, and successful, as Serena Williams. She’ll be missed.

A question for Serena, but no questions for Kerber

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — It seemed wrong, a final in women’s tennis without Serena Williams, but at the same time it seemed right. Sport is nothing but change, heroes and heroines raising a trophy or a hand in triumph and then being pushed aside, maybe in a matter of weeks or months — the Warriors' reign was halted all too quickly — or, in Serena’s case, a matter of years.

Now there is a new women’s tennis champion, someone who not that long ago the critics said didn’t have the game or the nerve to get to the top. Angelique Kerber is not only the U.S. Open winner but No. 1 in the rankings.

Kerber left no questions Saturday in the Open final, beating Karolina Pliskova, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, someone who like Kerber few outside the little, provincial world of tennis knew well, if at all, until recently.

Yet their questions of another, Serena, whose defeat in the semifinals by Pliskova on Thursday, and tumble from the top of the rankings on Saturday morning, became front-page news in the New York Times, 24 hours later.

The day the women’s final, for a second straight year, would played without her.

“Serena Williams Will Be 35.” said the headline over a story by tennis correspondent Chris Clarey. “But Will She Be No. 1 Again?”

Yes, Williams is American and held her position for 186 consecutive weeks, and we tend to dwell on what was as much as what is. Still, women’s tennis is in flux, although Kerber suddenly appears to be the top-of-the-heap player who may hold her ranking for a while.

Kerber has done what Serena used to do, what Venus Williams used to do, what Steffi Graf and Chris Evert used to do: she stepped up and dominated. She beat Serena in the Australian Open final, lost to Serena in the Wimbledon final and now beats Pliskova in the U.S. Open final. Three finals and two titles in a calendar year. That’s something we would have expected from Serena, or from Kerber’s mentor and fellow German, Steffi Graf, who persuaded Kerber to be more aggressive.

As perhaps too many women on tour, Kerber played too carefully, keeping the ball in play but rarely forcing the issue. But after she lost to Victoria Azarenka in the third round of last year’s Open, she visited Graf — the last player, male or female, to take the Grand Slam, all four majors in a year, 1988 — in Las Vegas, where Graf lives with her husband, Andre Agassi, and family.

“Kerber used to play too defensively,” Evert told the ESPN television audience, “and she had that pitty-pat serve.”

At age 28, Kerber conquered her faults and her demons. And with experience she then conquered the hard-serving Pliskova, who at 24 finally had her breakthrough.

Pliskova, who never had been beyond the third round of any major, first won the Cincinnati tournament a month ago, beating Kerber in the final, 6-3, 6-1, and then going all the way to this final — if not to the championship.

Kerber said she had dreamed of being No. 1 since she was a child in Bremen. Sometimes even in a sport where the young come up so quickly, and the veterans slip away no less quickly, success is a process that takes a long while.

"It means a lot to me,” said Kerber, still on the Arthur Ashe Stadium court as tears trickled down her face immediately after the match. “I mean, all the dreams came true this year, and I'm just trying to enjoy every moment on court and also off court."

She’ll enjoy it. Serena Williams may enjoy it less so. Will she be No. 1 again? It will be fascinating to find out.

Serena denies she was beaten because she was ‘beat up’

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — She looked weary, bewildered, and even, yes, old, because some two weeks from her 35th birthday, as a tennis player Serena Williams is old, 12 years older than Karolina Pliskova, who on a Thursday night of disbelief — and perhaps transition — stunned tennis and Williams.

A 6-foot-1 Czech with a serve no less impressive — and at times more effective — than Williams', Pliskova overcame her own history of Grand Slam failures, Serena’s reputation and a howling crowd with a 6-2, 7-6 (5) win in a U.S. Open semifinal.

For a second straight year, Williams falls one match short of the Open final — in 2015 she was upset by Roberta Vinci — and also for the first time in months falls out of the No. 1 ranking in women’s tennis, which now goes to Germany's Angelique Kerber, who faces Pliskova in Saturday's final.

Maybe it was because Serena played a three-setter in the quarterfinals Wednesday against Simona Halep and was unable to recover physically.   

Maybe it was because Serena’s game is not what it used to be.

Maybe it’s because Pliskova has learned to conquer the nerves that rattled her until this summer.

Maybe it’s because Serena has a sore leg.

However, she rejected any thought that playing two matches in two days had any effect on her game.

“I definitely was not beat up after my quarterfinal match,” she insisted. “I wasn’t tired from (Wednesday’s) match. I’m a professional player, been playing for over 20 years.

“If I can’t turn around after 24 hours and play again, then I shouldn’t be on tour. So I definitely wasn’t tired from (Wednesday’s) match at all. But yeah, I’ve been having some serious knee problems. Fatigue had nothing to do with it.”

Williams, who rides on her thundering serves, was broken twice in the first set and once in the second. Pliskova, who until this Open had never been past the third round of any major in 17 previous attempts, won the battle of serves, and thus the match.

“Yes,” said Williams. “I thought she served well today, and that definitely was a big thing for her.” 

As over the years it’s been a very big thing for Serena, who in the tiebreak had two double faults. That’s what others do, not Williams. Until this semi.

Pliskova had beaten Venus Williams, Serena’s older sister, in the fourth round of this Open, and so becomes only the fourth player, along with Martina Hingis, Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin, to score a victory over both Williamses in the same Slam tournament.

"I don't believe it," said Pliskova moments after the match finished at Arthur Ashe Stadium.

She wasn’t the only one, but anything in tennis, in sports, is believable. Who would have thought Rafa Nadal and Andy Murray would be gone before the semis? Who would have thought the San Francisco Giants would fall apart as they have done?

"I knew I had the chance to beat anyone if I played my game,” said Pliskova.

Which basically is preventing the opponent from returning a serve. It was evident why Pliskova leads the Tour in service aces.

Williams’ coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, had suggested that the knee injury was the difference. It’s tough to blame defeat on ailments. Long ago Venus Williams, when asked after losing a match if she had been hurt, said, “If you play you’re not hurt. If you’re hurt don’t play.”

Serena, pressed about the knee, said, “I’m not downplaying anything. Karolina played great today. I think had she played any less, I would have had a chance.

“So I think I wasn’t 100 percent, but I also think she played well. She deserved to win today.”

As with almost every full-time tennis player, Williams has had her share of injuries. It’s a fact in a sport where the competitors are traveling around the world and rarely taking days off.

There’s a never-ending circle. You have to be in a tournament for a chance to earn points that will get you into a tournament. And bodies fray.

Nadal pulled out of the French Open and missed Wimbledon because he was injured. Roger Federer’s knee would not allow him to play in this Open. Time catches up, especially as the years mount.

Williams lost to Kerber in the Australian Open final in January and beat her in the Wimbledon final in July. Who knows whether Serena can keep going on year after year? What we do know is she’s not going on in the 2016 U.S. Open.