As Andy Murray answered questions on just how much more superior an ageing Roger Federer still is to him, one question on the Swiss champion's ranking as one of the greatest sportsmen in history elicited a very typical response from the Brit. “Serena's (also) got a fair shout at it right now,” he interjected.
Right now, Serena Williams doesn't just have a shout at it; she has a roar as dramatic as those apocalyptic yells that came as she closed out Garbiñe Muguruza 6-4 6-4 and closed in on a second Serena Slam. What Williams is doing and what she has already achieved is peerless and unprecedented. Winning slams for 16 years is a level of insanity that has never previously been achieved, and capturing her second non-calendar year slam 12 years after the first is an achievement that the brain simply can't compute.
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Two years ago, Serena was already on top of the world. She enjoyed one of her best years in 2012 after recovering and returning from a life threatening pulmonary embolism, then she arrived in 2013 and bettered it. She was playing so well that she showed up at the 2013 clay court season and like Jesus upon sighting a jar of water, she magically turned her worst surface into her very best.
For a whole clay season, she glided across the clay like a gazelle, she unlocked wicked, crazy angles. She resembled one of the most accomplished claycourters the world has ever seen. When she was finished with the dirt, she had swept straight through every major event. She won Rome, Madrid and then Roland Garros with the loss of two sets.
This is important because of how incredible her level was back then, and how sickening the talent she exhibited at times was in all of its sweetness. If ever she was going to win a second Serena Slam and a bid for the true Grand Slam, it seemingly would have been during this golden period. But despite the level of her tennis, mentally at times she was strangely brittle in the major events.
She seemed burdened by her ticking clock and whatever on earth it is that swirls around Serena Williams' head. Her talent guided her through numerous slams during this period, but there were many times when the going got tough and her face would crease into a crying expression, even though there were no tears.
Two years on, after today's victory, Serena is an insane 39-1 in 2015, and yet until the second week of Wimbledon, she has barely played well. Ever since the very first week of the season when she arrived late into Perth for the Hopman Cup exhibition event and ordered an espresso after losing the first set 6-0 to Flavia Pennetta, something in her tennis had been off.
Whatever it is, it was simultaneously the pressure release of a lifetime. Thanks to her struggling game, she has been down so many times this year but mentally she is greater than ever. At the Australian Open, her Wimbledon final opponent Muguruza battered her for a set, but she refused to elicit even a flicker of negativity and turned the match around in a flash. When Maria Sharapova finally stepped up to the plate against her in a brilliantly competitive final, she matched every Sharapova cheer with a determined, resolute fist of her own.
In France, she was struggling and then she was sick, and it ended with her being forced to 3 sets in 5 of her 7 matches. She responded by digging herself out of so many different situations. At times she roared herself into action, other times she problem-solved her way to victory.
In the final, her resolution was one of the more bizarre things ever seen on a tennis court. As the anger overflowed, she decided to use it only as fuel. She began to explode, screaming expletives and berating herself, but only ever when she won points. She drove herself to victory from a break down in the third set, and it was the mark of somebody so in control of her devices, so aware of precisely what to do to get herself to victory.
And so Serena arrived in Wimbledon. For a short while, it looked like the mediocre tennis and resolute fight would continue as she thought her way past Heather Watson. But then she bumped into her sister, and the threat of the second greatest active player sent her level skyrocketing.
When Victoria Azarenka stormed into Centre Court for their quarter-final, her game was ready. Azarenka threw the entire country of Belarus and all surrounding former Soviet territories at Williams with some incredible tennis, Serena simply solved her problems and raised her level to above Azarenka's ceiling. She eventually comfortably beat the two-time slam champion at her best.
So, Serena has now won her second Serena Slam. She will arrive at the US Open in a position that is still impossible to even comprehend. Not only will Williams be chasing the full Grand Slam, but simultaneously she will be attempting to tie Steffi Graf's record 22 Open Era slams in her home major. There isn't a single word that exists to describe the pressure that she will be under.
There are many to describe to Serena herself, though. She is legendary, she is unbelievable. The entire sporting world should be fully engrossed this level sporting excellence that will never be seen again.
Still, no matter how many calls and how many calling outs there are, the reality is that Serena will never gain the recognition she deserves, or at least not until she is long gone from the scene. Regardless of the fact that she just won four slams in a row, if Federer wins his first in three years tomorrow, he will receive more adulation than the combined appreciation of all 21 of Williams' victories.
Meanwhile, there will always be the people who still use openly racist and sexist slurs just to put her in her place. There will also be the more subtle language used to describe her, the type employed by tennis fans, tennis haters, and the rest of the media alike. She will continue to be called “scary” or likened to some savage animal on a daily basis, while a similarly strong male athlete is referred to as impressive in the same breath.
But regardless, she will continue to be great. Over the past year of this Serena Slam, Williams has proven that she can win with simply her vast, endless reservoirs of talent that are arguably deeper than any else's in the history of tennis. She has also shown that she can win big when only her mind is present. And when it all comes together, as it did by the end of this Wimbledon, she has shown once again that she is simply unbeatable.
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