"It shook the world... A Black girl wins a Slam at 17" - Serena Williams opens up about dealing with having an 'X' on her back during early career
Serena Williams has said that winning her maiden Grand Slam as a 17-year-old drastically changed tennis' perception of her. Williams achieved the feat at the 1999 US Open, and she would go on to win 22 more women's singles titles at Majors, before bidding farewell to the sport 23 years later at the same tournament.
In 1999, Williams began her US Open campaign with a straightforward win over compatriot Kimberly Po-Messerli. Another win followed in the second round, this time over Jelena Kostanic Tosic, but it was far less convincing as Williams struggled with her first serve.
Williams' third-round encounter against Kim Clijsters turned out to be a thriller, as the latter looked favorite to win when the third set was 5-3 in her favor. However, the American mounted a stunning comeback and ultimately progressed. Three similarly tight matches followed against Conchita Martinez, Monica Seles, and defending champion Lindsay Davenport, and Williams had the answers when it mattered most in all of them.
In the final, Williams overcame 1997 champion and 1998 finalist Martina Hingis 6-3, 7-6(4), making the former the Open Era's first African American woman to win a singles Grand Slam title. Unsurprisingly, the discussion surrounding Williams grew, but not all of it, according to her, was positive.
In a recent interview with "The New York Times", the former World No. 1 said that she felt like she became a target following her title-winning 1999 US Open run. Williams also laid bare that people often assumed at the time that she was not friendly.
"I definitely had a red “X” on me. And it was hard. People assume that you’re not friendly, and that’s usually not the case. You’re just there to win, and people don’t really want to talk to winners in a singles sport. It’s like they say, Birds of a feather flock together, and there’s only one winner, so who are you gonna flock with? If I were playing soccer, it’d be a completely different situation, because you have a team of players," Williams said.
The 23-time women's singles Major winner opened up about her closeness with her mother Oracene Price and father Richard Williams as well. Williams went on to share her perspective on the seismic shift that her maiden Grand Slam title kickstarted in tennis. According to her, the fact that she had broken through in a sport "dominated by Caucasians" being Black made her a much-disliked figure.
"I do feel like it shook the world. I mean, come on: A Black girl wins a Grand Slam at 17 years old, and she’s from Compton! Obviously they took notice. Tennis had been dominated by Caucasians, so it was like: “Whoa. We’re having a change in our sport. We don’t like that. This isn’t normal. Let’s not let her win.”," she added.
"Nobody's going to be able to stop an all-Williams final" - Serena Williams at 2000 US Open
Williams oozed confidence at the 2000 US Open, where she was the defending champion and among the favorites to win the women's singles title. She reached the quarterfinals without dropping a set. However, her run was stopped in its tracks by Davenport in the quarters, who avenged her loss to Williams in the semis of the hardcourt Major's 1999 edition.
During the post-match press conference, Williams was asked if she found Davenport and Martina Navratilova's desire to not see a Grand Slam final between her and elder sister Venus surprising. Williams responded by saying that it did not come as a surprise to her, but she also said, rather prophetically in hindsight, that her and Venus meeting at Major finals was "inevitable". Venus would go on to clinch the 2000 US Open crown.
"That's the way a lot of people would want it. I'm sure a lot of people never want to see an all-Williams final. It's going to happen in the future inevitably. Nobody's going to be able to stop it. Unfortunately, I didn't pull my end up this year," Williams said.
The sisters contested nine women's singles finals at Major, with Williams defeating Venus on seven of those occasions. Their final meeting at the last hurdle of a Grand Slam came at the 2017 Australian Open, where a pregnant Williams triumphed 6-4, 6-4 to win her 23rd singles Major.