‘Mentally Tough’ Not Always Virtue
Serena Williams is the No. 1 female tennis player in the world. This is a position she has secured for most of the decade, dropping relatively lower with injuries from 2004-2006, and then returning to the fore again in 2008. Enough has been said about her virtues as a player, but few have been so bold to assess her deficiencies.
Her father and coach Richard Williams has been with Serena from the start, indeed that is one of her virtues. On Monday at Wimbledon, when asked to sum her assets up collectively, he replied: “Serena is like a young Mike Tyson and a pit bull dog, and both of those people were mentally tough in their time. Serena is so mentally tough that she don’t believe she can lose. I sometimes feel watching her when she do lose, she might feel time ran out, or something went wrong, but she didn’t lose.”
Richard Williams, who raised Serena and the older Venus in Compton, the notoriously poor district of Los Angeles, added more to the hypothesis: “I think it [mental toughness] came from my Mom [Julia Williams] and I also think it came from her mom [Oracene Price]. My mom was extremely mentally tough and Serena’s mom is mentally tough. I know it didn’t come from me.”
As is well known, Serena’s toughness does not always produce favourable results. At the US Open last year, for instance, she expressed her toughness by violently threatening a lineswoman who had called her for a foot fault at a critical stage in her semi-final match with Kim Clijsters. Ultimately she was fined almost a $100,000 for the behavior, which was well documented and shocking.
But as Wimbledon follows its course this week, there are little doubts brewing. Serena is dominating and feeling high after a solid 7-6(9), 6-4 knocking off of Maria Sharapova yesterday, wherein she looked like the dominant force of old. After the match Sharapova was skeptical that anyone would be able to defeat her if the effort continues: “If she’s consistently serving and hitting those spots with that speed [an average of 113 miles an hour for first serves], I think it’ll be pretty tough.”
On her mental state, Sharapova added: “It takes a lot of concentration to break her. Even if you know her pattern or feel like you’re getting on top of her serves, even if you have a good look at them, there’s a chance you’re not going to win the point.”
Nobody is really denying Serena’s mental prowess, but more and more it has been the subject of criticism, as oppose to praise. When she suffered the foot fault at the US Open, a camera caught her remarks to the lineswoman, which went along the lines of: “I swear I [expletive] want to shove this ball down your [expletive] throat.”
A fine is something, but doesn't balance out disrespect for the game. It’s no secret that Serena is a sore loser, and that helps to account for her success as a winner—but it still doesn’t make the former justifiable on a professional stage, especially repeatedly. The situation is remarkable akin to Tiger Woods, who, while dominating his field, has also shown that he cannot accept defeat or poor play and is given to unnecessary outbursts.
I don’t care if you’re the perfect athlete, people aren’t going to like you if you can’t show restraint, and that’s why Serena Williams will never have the following of a Michael Jordan. It takes a big player to be great, but it takes an even greater player to be remembered positively.
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