On the Line (8 page)

He nodded his head to indicate the court.

Daddy thought there must be some mistake. He said, “No, sir. She’s not playing. She’s too young. She’s not signed up.”

The guy said, “No, Mr. Williams. I’m afraid there’s no mistake. She’s in the other half of the draw. She’s playing right now.”

My father couldn’t believe it, but the guy walked him over to where I was playing. I didn’t know he was there at the time.
He stayed back, away from the court. That was just as well, since I don’t think I would have noticed him if he’d pulled up
close. I was too focused on my match to worry what kind of trouble I’d get into once my parents found out I’d entered the
tournament without their permission. Right then, I was only worried about my opponent. I had just turned eight a week or so
earlier, but I was determined and single-minded even then. I was trying to run this girl all over the place and tire her out—and
I was doing a pretty good job of it.

I ended up winning that match, and when it was over I heard my dad’s sweet drawl coming at me from behind the fence. He said,
“Meeka! Look at you! You won! You played great!”

He was so positive, so upbeat. Here I’d thought I’d be in for another whupping, but he couldn’t have been more encouraging.
I was prepared for punishment—at the very least, I thought I’d get a good talking-to—but it never came, and so for the time
being I was just happy that Daddy was happy. And he was happy that I was happy.

He said, “I can’t believe you won. I can’t believe my two girls both won. I’m so proud of you.”

And he
was
proud, I could see that. He was beaming. My mother, too. And Venus, when she found out what I had done, she had a smile on
her face like you wouldn’t believe. Not because I’d won, I don’t think, but because I had the brass to enter the tournament
in the first place. Deep down, I think she knew I’d win if I had the chance to play, so she wasn’t surprised by the outcome.
She was just surprised to see me playing.

Right away, Daddy started talking about what I’d have to do to win my next match, the few things he saw in my game I might
need to fix before the next round. Venus was in the other half of the draw, so I didn’t have to worry about facing her just
yet. I had two other girls to get past on the way to the finals. I had never given the finals a thought going in, but after
that first match I thought I could do well. My next opponent was a girl I used to play a lot in practice, so Daddy knew all
kinds of ways for me to beat her. He said as long as I had entered I might as well go on to the finals.

I said, “You really think I can beat her?”

He said, “Meeka, you can do anything.”

It worked out so he could be at that next match, to cheer me on, and then at the semifinal match, against another girl we
knew, so he gave me some tips on how to beat her, too.

Now things were getting exciting. It was a 10-and-under tournament and I was the youngest girl in the field, by a lot, so
people were coming around to watch, to talk to my parents, to talk to me after my matches. All of a sudden, I had what Venus
had. It was the most thrilling, encouraging day. And so much fun! But then I realized these wins now put me in the finals
against Venus, and all of a sudden I was intimidated. I knew I couldn’t beat her, because it was the final round of a sanctioned
tournament. There’d be people watching, so I couldn’t cheat. Venus was just too good, and I was just too little.

It was the first time we’d face each other in tournament play—the first time of many. And, of course, it was such a big, big
deal in our family. My parents were so excited for both of us. They said afterward they didn’t know which one of us to root
for. They just wanted us to play good tennis, and to have fun, and to learn from the experience. That became their standard
response whenever we’d face each other. Our sisters were also terribly excited for both of us. And I was so excited for Venus.
I really was. I tell that to people, and they think it’s just a line, but it’s the God’s honest truth. I always want the best
for Venus when she’s out there on the court. I want her to make her shots, and hold her serve, and all that. Even if it means
I’ll have to face her in the end. I just don’t want her to do all those things against
me
.

My thinking has always been, Look, she’s the best player on the tour. Next to me. If you ask Venus, she’d probably say the
same thing: “Serena is the best player on the tour. Next to me.”

That’s how we felt as kids, too, and it wasn’t bluster or arrogance that had us feeling this way. No. It’s that we really
were good. As soft as my game might have been, it was only that way in comparison to Venus’s game. Everyone else my age I
could beat. Everyone else Venus’s age I could beat. At least, in and around Los Angeles. I’d seen all those girls play. I’d
played most of them in practice, or in some recreational league or other. I didn’t have the power to beat them with anything
but lobs and rallies and placement, but I had the shots. I had that mental edge, that toughness. Daddy had me thinking about
my footwork, and moving my opponents around, and working my serve, and that was all fine against these other girls, but we
all knew that finals match against Venus would be another story.

Meanwhile, just before the final, my father came over to talk to me about the tournament fee. I think it was forty dollars—and
naturally I hadn’t paid it. He’d spoken to the director between matches, and puzzled together how I’d sent in my own application,
and he thought he’d have some fun with me about the fee. He said, “How you planning to pay for this tournament, Meeka?”

It turned out he wasn’t really mad that I had entered. He was happy that I cared enough about playing to arrange this sneaky
end around into the draw. And he was happy that I was doing well. But I had no money to pay my own way. I hadn’t thought things
through that far, so now I had something else to worry about, along with going up against V in the final. It never occurred
to me that he was just joking with me. I could see he was smiling, but you could never tell with Daddy. He was always smiling.

He probably thought this would be a good distraction for me, to get my mind off my worries about facing Venus, and I guess
it was. And yet, distraction or no, I couldn’t keep up with Venus. She beat me easily; 6–2, 6–2, I think. I tried my best,
but she was playing at a whole other level. And I was happy for her, too, that she’d played so well. I was sad for me, though.
Really. If I was any older, or more mature, I might have given myself permission to sulk or fuss about losing, but I didn’t
think there was any room in the moment for me to be upset. It was Venus’s tournament, after all. I didn’t really belong there.
I should have been happy for V that she’d won. She deserved to win. She was meant to win. But I was surely disappointed—and
I couldn’t let on! Here I’d had this great tournament. I’d made it all the way to the finals. I was the youngest girl there.
I got a lot of attention. But when you’re eight, you don’t have it in you to appreciate the big picture, so I remember feeling
this huge letdown.

At the awards ceremony right after, they gave Venus a nice gold trophy. They gave me a nice silver trophy as the runner-up.
It was my first real trophy, so you’d think I’d be excited about it, but I just kept looking at Venus’s gold trophy and wishing
I could have somehow beaten her. Oh my God, I wanted that gold trophy so badly.

Venus could see I was upset. After all, she was my big sister. She was used to taking care of me. She knew just what to do
to pick me up. She came up to me after the awards ceremony and said, “You know what, Serena? I’ve been thinking. I’ve always
liked silver better than gold. You want to trade?”

It was the sweetest, most selfless gesture. She set it out like I’d be doing her a favor by trading trophies. Took me completely
by surprise, but we traded trophies right there. She was my big sister so I did what she said, and to this day that’s the
most meaningful trophy I’ve ever received. I didn’t earn it, but I cherish it. It’s the only one I keep close—at my bedside,
actually. Every night when I’m home, I go to bed and look at Venus’s gold first-place trophy from my first-ever tournament
and count my blessings. That I have the world’s best big sister. That at eight years old I was able to beat all these girls
a year or two older. That Daddy never did make me pay him back for that entry fee. That I wouldn’t have to play in those silly
recreational leagues anymore, now that I had shown everyone I was ready to play in real tournaments. That my whole family
was so incredibly supportive of me during that first tournament, just as they have been at every tournament since. And that
no matter how many times Venus and I face each other on a tennis court, we’ll always be sisters.

We’ll battle each other like nobody’s business, but the competition will never separate us.

T
he buzz around Venus’s game only got louder as we developed, because she never lost a match as a junior player. Me, I didn’t
lose many, but I did lose a few. And yet despite that small gap between us in terms of our records, the space between us in
terms of our reputations was just huge. Venus was still the rising star, and I was still the kid sister. I started to think
maybe that newspaper reporter was right, because our situation wasn’t about to change. Venus was still way taller than me,
but a lot of times people couldn’t tell us apart. They’d call me Venus; they’d call her Serena. But once they saw us play,
that made it easier. They could tell the fierce swan from the ugly duckling, no problem.

After that first tournament, Daddy did what he could to make sure we didn’t compete against each other in a meaningful match.
He put Venus in the 12-and-unders and me in the 10-and-unders. And that was how it was until we both turned professional.
Venus went pro first, and I followed soon after, kind of like it first happened for us on the circuit in California. After
that, we couldn’t really control when we’d face each other. We could only hope it wasn’t too early in the tournament, so we’d
each have a chance to get on a roll and reach into the later rounds. Ideally, we’d stay out of each other’s way until the
end.

The very first time we competed as professionals was in the second round of the 1998 Australian Open. I’m skipping ahead here,
but I want to finish out these thoughts about going up against Venus, and growing up as a player in her magnificent shadow.
It was my first major (also known as a Grand Slam tournament), so I was pretty nervous. I’d ended the previous year ranked
99th in the world, so I was starting to make my mark. A couple years later, I’d see that 99 ranking on the way down, and it
felt a whole lot different to me, but on the way up it felt great. On the way up, it was a real marker, the first time my
rank reached into double digits—and then, into single digits. People around tennis were talking about how this was going to
be a big year for me—but you have to remember, Venus was already making her mark. She was already ranked in the Top 20. I’d
watched her struggle in her very first professional matches, then get it together and have some success. That’s why I think
I went into that second-round match in Melbourne with a defeatist attitude, because Venus was playing so well, and because
she was expected to play so well.

It’s not that I was convinced I would lose, but I was resigned to it. It’s better to say I was
prepared
to lose—and, of course, that’s no way to prepare to win. (Sounds like one of my dad’s motivational quotes!) In any case,
that’s the kind of rookie mistake I used to make when I was just starting out. I’d put myself in the wrong frame of mind before
a match, not realizing how important the mental part of the game was in relation to everything else I put out on the court.
But my head was cluttered with so many negative thoughts, so many drags on my performance, there was just no way I could have
played well.

Yes, I was bigger and stronger than I was the first time I’d played Venus in that first-ever youth tournament. Goodness, I
was nearly as big and strong as Venus. But I was only sixteen years old. It was my first full year on the tour. Nobody expected
me to win. Everybody expected Venus to win. And even if I did manage to get past V and into the third round, nobody thought
I’d have a shot at going much deeper in the tournament, against all that great competition. Most important,
I
didn’t think I’d have a shot. Venus, though, she had a shot—and she knew it. She’d been playing well enough to win the championship,
so a part of me thought,
Hey, this is my sister. She deserves to win. Better for her to win and go deep in the tournament than for me to win and get
knocked out in the next round.
That’s how this first matchup had me thinking. Like a loss to V would come with its own silver lining, because she’d get
to keep playing. Like if I managed to win it would somehow knock both of us from the field.

I hated that we had to meet so early in the tournament, but that was how it fell. And over the years, that was how it would
fall again and again. As we moved up in the rankings, as we earned higher and higher seeds, the draw would be set in such
a way that we couldn’t meet until the later rounds, but that wouldn’t happen for a while. In 1998, before I’d ever played
a Grand Slam tournament, it was inevitable that we would meet in the first or second round, so the thing to do was power through
and hope for the best—never fully knowing if
the best
meant a victory for me or Venus.

We were both a little tentative in that match. Venus ended up beating me in straight sets, but the first set went to a tiebreaker.
She took control in the second set, though, to beat me 7–6, 6–1. Neither one of us played particularly well, like we were
careful not to show each other up. I kept looking at the players’ box, where my sisters were sitting with my mom, and it was
so weird, no one knowing when to cheer or what to wish for. Tunde didn’t make the trip—she had kids of her own by this point,
and Melbourne was a
long
way from her home in Los Angeles—but Isha and Lyn were there. I felt the same tug-and-pull down on the court. I wanted to
win, but I wanted Venus to win, too, if that makes any sense. As disappointed as I was to lose (remember, I
hate
losing!), that’s how happy I was that Venus had won.