In her long-delayed debut, Venus Williams couldn't live up to her own billing
S.L. Price


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A first week of rain did Mother Wimbledon no good. Day after day, tennis's
grandest dame burrowed under cover, peeking out at the plunking puddles,
taking blow after blow from an impatient world. Tear up the grass! Throw a
dome over the tournament! Shove it into the Thames! cried the complainers.
Nearly three days passed with no play, and Mother Wimbledon limped into
Saturday praying for sun and a savior. What it got was a sky sliding from
black to gray to the sickly beige of an English smile. What it got, when
tennis finally began, was Venus Williams.

She was like nothing Wimbledon had ever seen. Ranked 59th in the world and
with nary a tournament title to her credit, the 17-year-old Williams made her
debut at the All-England Lawn Tennis Club with the subtlety of a crashing
space station. With Williams's Monday match washed all the way to Saturday,
the British press gorged itself on Sister from Another Planet morsels:
Venus's girlhood practices in Compton, Calif., dodging bullets; her refusal,
as a Jehovah's Witness, to celebrate her own birthday; and, of course, her
clattering headful of beads—green, purple and white, in honor of the
tournament.

She presented, all in all, a wonderful show of mindless arrogance. Sitting
next to her 15-year-old sister, Serena, at a press conference before her
first match, Venus serenely answered questions about her father and coach,
Richard, who had inexplicably stayed home; about her slow emergence on the
tour, her visit to the Tower of London, her declarations that she and Serena
will one day battle it out for No. 1. She responded to charges of cockiness—
Brenda Schultz-McCarthy reported last week that Venus had said, "Don't touch
me" at the net during an earlier tournament—by saying, "I don't hold great
conversations. Actually, I don't hold conversations at all." Asked if she
could save U.S. tennis, she said, "Yes, I think so." Asked if she admired any
other players, she said, "No, I don't."

Such talk set up Saturday's first-round match against 91st-ranked Magdalena
Grzybowska of Poland as a routine trouncing. With her mother, Oracene, and
Serena watching, Venus unrolled a 6-4, 2-0 lead in the sweet confines of
Court No. 1, forehand booming, serve at 114 mph, beads jangling. Grzybowska
evened things at 2-all in the second, but Venus pushed her to break point and
seemed ready to put things away. Serena, face hidden by a sheet of white
beads herself, pulled out A Tale of Two Cities and began to read. "I read the
other one, Great Expectations, but I like this one better," Serena said after
the match.

Grzybowska hammered an overhead smash, then hit an inventive drop shot to
hold serve and go up 3-2. Serena put her book away. Venus fell apart.
Grzybowska, never intimidated by Venus's power, began ripping backhands deep
and down the line. Venus's serve crumbled. She kept hitting the ball to that
laser backhand. She lost seven straight games, and she suddenly looked lost.
Early in the third set Venus went lunging for a shot and ended up facedown on
the turf. Three times in the third she had Grzybowska down break point at
love and couldn't convert. By the time it was over, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, Williams
stood revealed as a huge talent with little idea of how to adjust to an
opponent or adversity. "I was surprised," Grzybowska said. "I don't know why
she was playing like that. My backhand is my best shot."

Grzybowska met Williams at the net, curious to hear something outrageous.
Williams said nothing. Later, players kept coming to Grzybowska, full of joy
and congratulations. "It was very funny," Grzybowska said. "Because of all
the stuff in the newspapers about her...I guess everybody thought it was too
much."

It stayed that way for one more day. VENUS OUT OF ORBIT! screamed one Sunday
headline, VENUS HAS TUMBLED BACK DOWN TO EARTH crowed another. Williams
didn't seem to care. "It's my first Wimbledon," she said. "There will be many
more."