Rocky Mountain
Serena Williams had survived having to play her sister Venus in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open and had only to defeat the 43rd ranked (and a player at the Open not even deemed worthy enough to be seeded) player in the world to make the finals and a very tangible shot at a true calendar year Grand Slam and tennis immortality. Her semi-final match did not seem like it would be THAT much of a mountain to climb.
Her opponent, Italian Roberta Vinci, was a career journey(wo)man on the women’s tour, a player who had never made a Grand Slam final in her life, and acknowledged by nearly every expert out there to be a mere stepping stone to Serena Williams’ march to her destiny. Vinci, 32, had played Serena Williams before, but had never really come close to beating the 21 time major winner. She was installed as a 300 to 1 long shot to win the U.S. Open. That’s where they put the fringe players that they KNOW have no chance of winning.
When they met on the court in the semis on this Friday September 11, career victim Roberta Vinci had about as much chance of beating Serena Williams as Rocky Balboa had of beating Apollo Creed. In fact, Rocky had a BETTER chance than Roberta because he had the benefit of being a fictitious character in a movie with a pre-determined script. Vinci had to deal with the reality of playing a REAL person who had won 21 majors in REAL life.
When they actually played the match, Serena took the first set 6 – 2 and showed Vinci the reality of the non-seeded player playing against the world’s best player. As they changed sides between sets, you could probably imagine Vinci telling an imaginary friend, “I know I have no chance of beating the champ. Just let me go the distance against her. Just let me look good in front of all of the millions of people watching.”
Then, Vinci started playing well. And Serena Williams started making a lot of unforced errors. Vinci won the second set and set up a winner take all third set. She was making the shots she was trying to make, trying to make sure she kept the ball in play, while Williams was trying to hit winners (when perhaps the smart tactical move was to just keep keeping the ball in play herself) and MISSING them, with equal amounts of hitting long and smashing the ball into the net.
Throw in a few double faults, and suddenly Serena Williams was playing a huge match with less than her best game and the unranked opponent was maybe playing the match of her life. Vinci broke Williams’ serve early and had a temporary lead until Williams broke back to tie it up at 3 – 3. Williams seemed to be cranking up that extra gear of hers to get herself to play just well enough to handle the upstart Italian.
Vinci won some dramatic, spectacular points and won the seventh game on Williams’ serve to go up 4 – 3. The match would be hers if she could hold serve. Williams tried to break, got a lead. but made some more mistakes wide and into the net (could it have been nerves?) and allowed Vinci to take the game Serena HAD to win to go up 5 – 3.
Vinci won the match on the last game of her own serve quite decisively to win the third set 6 – 4 (final scores were 2 – 6, 6 – 4, 6 – 4) to close out the Serena Williams Grand Slam of 2015 and to finish off one of the most improbable upsets in modern tennis history. She was shocked. She was ecstatic. She was in a Grand Slam final for the first time.
No one could tell whether she was more excited with getting herself to play well enough to beat the world’s best player in a big match at a critical time, or whether she was just happy to finally make it into a Grand Slam final (probably a little bit of both). But she was truly excited. She was experiencing the greatest moment of her (sporting) life.
She was like Rocky Balboa. Serena was like Apollo Creed. She had probably just wanted to go the distance against Williams. But, instead she had WON. She had BEATEN the champion. She had climbed the highest, most difficult of
mountains, the Mt. Everest of her sport. Rocky had beaten Apollo Creed in real life.
Serena Williams may have thought she had to climb a mountain of obstacles to win this fourth Grand Slam title of this calendar year. She may have thought she had what it took to conquer the mountain. But there was one thing she didn’t count on. In the semi-final match against Roberta Vinci, the mountain she had to climb was ROCKY.
