On the Line (12 page)

I heard that and thought,
Okay, Serena. Keep it together. Just hold serve and you’re back to even. Just hold serve and all this energy will shift over
to your side of the net.
I figured I had this one guy on my side and that was all I needed, so I pulled myself together and did just that.

Unfortunately, the seesaw continued to teeter in the third set. I went up 0–40 in Kim’s service game to start the set, but
she hung on to take the first game. For me, it was one unforced error on top of another, and each one seemed to allow Kim
to play with a little more confidence. Until the seesaw tilted back in my direction. Then I’d capitalize on one of her mistakes
and go on a momentum run of my own. That’s what happened here. I took the next five games, to take a commanding 5–1 lead in
the third set, up two breaks.

I thought,
That should keep these people quiet!

I ended up winning the match 4–6, 6–4, 6–2. I don’t know how I did it, but what mattered to me most of all at just that moment
was that it was over. It wasn’t about winning. It was about powering through. At the same time, I remember feeling badly for
Kim Clijsters. She’s a great girl. Absolutely, the crowd affected her, too. Neither one of us deserved to be caught in such
a hateful moment, and as a result I don’t think either one of us got to play our best tennis that day. We’d each been having
such a strong tournament, it was a shame for the championship to be decided on such a pair of unremarkable performances.

By the end of the match, a good portion of the crowd had come over to my side. There were still boos, but it was almost like
being at any other sporting event. Once I went up those two breaks in the third set, it seemed inevitable that I would win,
and the crowd softened. I imagined the fans felt badly about how they treated me and my family at the outset, and that explained
why the mood of the stadium turned a little bit. Not a whole lot, but a little.

In the postmatch interview they do on the court, I thanked my dad and Venus and the few people who cheered for me throughout.
“And to those of you who didn’t,” I said, “I love you anyway.” My throat was all knotted up. I tried to smile. I didn’t want
to choke on my words in front of all those people, so I kept my speech short. I held my head high and said what I needed to
say, and then I waved to the crowd and disappeared into the runway beneath the stadium.

You want to talk about strength? It was harder—
way
harder!—to get through that postmatch interview than it was to play the match itself, but I would not be reduced by these
people. I would rise above them. And it would take every measure of strength in my nineteen-year-old frame to lift myself
from this moment.

I was crying when I left the court, but I didn’t want anyone to see so I kept wiping away my tears. I was tired and sweaty,
so that helped. The tears just blended in with the anguish of the match. I choked up, too, during the press conference afterward,
but the whole time I kept thinking of Althea Gibson and how she had to deal with some of the same vitriol. I remembered reading
that Althea had to sleep in her car when she was out on the road traveling to all these tournaments, because she couldn’t
stay in the hotels. I don’t know if I could have done that, but she did it so I wouldn’t have to. She was a true tennis pioneer
for African-American women. Zina Garrison, too, a couple generations later. She had her own trials to get past while she was
walking the path Althea had set. And now here I was, all these years later, at my favorite place to play, in a supposedly
enlightened time, hearing the same garbage all over again.

I
look back now and think something could have been done about this situation before it got out of hand. Some tournament official
could have gotten on the loudspeaker and explained to the fans that Venus had been legitimately hurt, that I had nothing to
do with her withdrawal, that every effort had been made to cancel that semifinal match in a more timely manner. Some effort
could have been made to quiet the crowd. But no one did anything. The WTA people just sat there with their mouths open as
all these people beat up on a little girl. The Indian Wells people just sat there with their mouths open, too. Everyone was
in shock, I think—but that’s no excuse.

I could cry about it now if I wanted to, but I choose not to. I could lose sleep over the sight of that little girl—me!—wearing
her adorable pink Puma jumper, and her braids, and playing her heart out in front of such an angry mob. But I choose to gain
strength from this sorry moment, not to give it away. I choose to recognize it for what it was, to learn from it, and then
move past it. And yet I call attention to it because I believe it’s instructive, because I think we need to call out bad behavior,
especially when it cuts across racial lines and is directed at our children. After all, that’s what I was at the time, a child.
Say whatever you want about my dad and how he handled our careers when we came onto the scene. Say whatever you want about
me and Venus and how our approach to the game may or may not have been different from the approach taken by the other girls
on the tour. At the end of the day we were just a couple kids, trying to do our best.

We need to hold each other accountable for our actions, don’t you think? Nobody really talked about this at the time, and
Venus and I never really talked about it, not even in the car ride back to Los Angeles with our sisters. We all drove back
together, and it was the strangest, most unsettling ride, because usually after a big tournament win we’d all be giddy and
excited. But here it was like we had been stunned into silence. We all knew what we’d just seen and experienced, and it just
kind of hung there in the car with us, like a pall.

In some ways, it’s with us still. You can see it in the stand Venus and I took afterward. We refused to return to Indian Wells.
Even now, all these years later, we continue to boycott the event. It’s become a mandatory tournament on the tour, meaning
that the WTA can fine a player if she doesn’t attend. But I don’t care if they fine me a million dollars, I will not play
there again. They can also suspend you from the next tournament, but my feeling is that if I go back to Indian Wells I’ll
send the wrong message to little black girls who for whatever reason have chosen to look up to me, who might have a dream
of lifting themselves up and out of their present situations and becoming something else. If they fine me, they fine me. If
they suspend me, they suspend me.

As I write this, it looks like I can keep to my principles on this and I won’t be fined or suspended—but I really don’t care
either way. I have a responsibility to those little girls who look up to me, just as I have a responsibility to myself. They
might not even know what happened at Indian Wells in 2001, but I’ll know. And I’ll know that if I don’t make my small stand
on this, it will be harder for them to make their small stands when they come up.

It’s amazing to me how every year some tour official comes to me and asks, “Are you playing Indian Wells this year?” It’s
as if we never had the conversation before. And every year I say, “Hell, no. I’m not playing Indian Wells. Are you out of
your mind?”

The most amazing thing is that they keep asking, like it never happened. But you don’t get past racial tension by forgetting
about it. You don’t just ignore this kind of prejudice and hope it goes away. That’s not how it works. If you sweep it under
the rug, one day you’ll lift the rug to redecorate and there it will be.

No, I won’t go back. I will not give these people the validation. I will not stand down. It’s a point of pride. I don’t care
what these folks say about me, about how I’m vindictive or stubborn or reading too much into the situation. I actually heard
that one, early on, from some official. He said I was making something out of nothing. But I don’t think so. Remember, I was
there. I was the target. I know what I know. What I don’t know and what I can’t say for certain is whether or not the small
stand my sister and I are taking on Indian Wells will amount to anything in the ongoing fight for equality. Probably it won’t,
but you never know. You don’t make these stands to accomplish a specific goal, I’ve come to realize. You make them because
they’re right. You make them because, taken together, they add up to something. In all walks of life. At all times. At all
costs. You make them because you wouldn’t be here if someone didn’t make them for you, long before you were even born. You
make them to ensure that the doors that are at long last open to you will keep from closing. You make them because you can,
and because you must. Most of all, you make them because somewhere some little girl might be watching. This little girl might
be black or white or brown. She might be rich or poor. She might be a future tennis player or a doctor or a fashion designer.
Whatever she wants to be, she can be. It’s like my mom used to always say, all she has to do is set her mind to it and get
busy. And all I have to do is set a positive example.

Piece of cake, right?

U stand on the shoulders of your parents and grandparents. Your ancestors made U. Your ancestors made U the best. Think of
all they went through for U. Don’t let any girl take away your win, your destiny, your dream. This is opportunity. Yours.
This is your time. At last. This is your dream. Make it happen.

—
MATCH BOOK ENTRY

F
aith. It’s at the root of everything I do, everything I believe. It’s what gets me out of bed each morning before first light,
to head out to the tennis court. And it’s what keeps me believing that anything is possible—not just on the court, but all
around.

Without faith, what do we have? What’s the point? Where’s that silent fuel to drive us through our days and get us where we’re
going? This kind of thinking was instilled in me when I was little, through the values passed on by my parents and sisters,
and through meetings and Bible study. Those Bible verses I cited earlier? I come by them honestly. The scripture that lifts
me from a low moment like Indian Wells is in my bones. See, we were raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses, and that foundation has
given me a deep conviction in a higher power, a higher purpose. It grounds me, and keeps me whole and looking ahead. Most
of all, it places my life in a kind of context and lets me know I’m not just going through the motions but moving instead
to some higher purpose. There’s got to be a reason we’re all here on this earth—reaching, striving, pushing—don’t you think?

Now, I do my share of preaching and teaching the good news, but I don’t go door-to-door as much as I’d like, because people
recognize me and it gets in the way of what I’m trying to say. Sometimes, I’ll knock on a door and people will be so surprised
to see Serena Williams on the other side that we never quite get around to the reason for my visit. Other times, they’ve got
no idea who I am and I’ll have their full attention.

I do my share of reaching out, too, but that’s not for these pages. What’s important to note here is that I feel strongly
that we all need to believe in something. Open your heart to the idea that there’s something bigger out there, something bigger
than we can know.

In our house, our hearts were opened early on. My mom had been raised in a churchgoing family back in Michigan, and she was
looking for a place to keep that going once we moved to California. She was anxious to re-create those all-important points
of connection in her new community, but that took some time, I’m afraid. If you’ve ever met my mom, you’ll know that not just
any church would do. She’s a spiritual person, but she’s not the most social person on the planet, so those two sides had
to fit together. She had to feel comfortable wherever she worshipped. I was too little to know any of this firsthand, but
she used to tell my sisters that when she found the right church she’d know it, and that would be all there was to it. Her
big thing? She was looking for something real, she used to tell us. Something honest. The truth.

And so she went to a lot of different churches—every week, it seemed, she was trying on another one—but she never really felt
a powerful connection until some Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked on our front door one morning. It was like some kind of sign,
like God had literally answered her prayers, so she went to a meeting at Kingdom Hall. I’m betting she was skeptical at first,
because she didn’t know what to expect, but she took to it, she really did. She went by herself at first, to make sure it
was a good fit. After that, we went regularly to meetings, as a family. Enthusiastically, too. In California, that meant every
Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. In Florida, after we’d picked up and moved there so we could kick things up a couple notches
in our training, it meant every Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Yes, it takes up some time, but you don’t really notice the
time when you’re at Kingdom Hall. It becomes a part of you, and washes over you, and you’re swept up and set down on the other
side of the experience in such a way that the time just flies. Anyway, that’s how it’s been with me. Ever since I was little,
sitting next to my sisters, soaking it all in, wanting to be no place else in this whole world.

My dad didn’t always go with us to meetings, but he was with us in spirit. He carved out time for us away from practice to
coincide with our meeting schedule, because Kingdom Hall came first. We weren’t allowed to miss a meeting—for
anything
. He and my mom both believed it was important for us to have religion in our lives. It was a first-and-foremost deal. That,
and a good education. Even our relationships with each other had everything to do with this shared search for meaning. It
was at the core of our family—and, blessedly, it remains so.

The great thing about being a Jehovah’s Witness is it’s all about the Bible. A lot of people don’t understand our movement,
but it’s all right there. New Testament. Old Testament. As it says in 2 Timothy 3:16, all scripture is inspired of God, so
we read it all. All the way through, and then all over again. We try to learn from it and apply what we learn, both to our
everyday lives and to set us straight for teaching and righteousness. In fact, the Jehovah’s Witnesses grew out of the Bible
Student movement at the turn of the last century, so Bible study remains central to what we do. We seek to understand the
stories that have been set down to teach us, to light our way, and to reconsider these stories yet again.