If there is one tennis showplace that has been Serena Williams's proving ground, it is Arthur Ashe Stadium.
It was there at the United States Open, amid the swirling winds, that she caught the public and her family by surprise in 1999 by becoming the first Williams sister to win a Grand Slam singles title.
It was there that she lost her temper 10 years later, threatening and cursing at a lineswoman who had had the temerity to call her for a foot fault. And it was there, with the music blaring on the changeovers and the public yelling, 'Come on Serena!' that she underscored her late-career dominance by winning again, without diplomatic incident, in 2012 and 2013.
It should not come as a shock to learn that she is in position to make it three titles in a row on Sunday. After an unexpectedly up-and-down season, she has had an up-and-up tournament, surrendering no more than three games in any set on her way to the final and surrendering only four in total to Ekaterina Makarova on Friday in a 6-1, 6-3 semifinal victory that required precisely one hour.
Makarova, the 5-foot-9 gifted lefthander from Russia, once upset Williams at the Australian Open, and she often struck the ball with great skill and conviction in this match, too. But Williams was in one of those moods and zones that reduces her rivals to foils.
Focused. Balanced. Calm between points. Ferocious once they began but not to the point that she was blinded by her trademark fury.
'I can say yes, she's much better than everyone,' Makarova said.
Caroline Wozniacki is the only woman left who can prove that statement wrong.
The final could be an emotionally complex matchup in light of their friendship: deepened by Wozniacki's support of Williams during her serious health problems in 2011 and by Williams's support during her broken engagement to Rory McIlroy this spring.
But Williams has been dealing with emotionally complex matchups from the beginning, growing up as the understudy to big sister and best friend Venus and eventually finding a way to beat Venus to the biggest trophies.
'If I can play Venus, I can play anybody,' Williams said on Friday.
Their emergence and unconventional path to the top has been one of the most remarkable sports stories in history, truly. But it is Serena who has climbed the highest, and a victory on Sunday will tie her for fourth on the career list with Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, icons from an era when tennis mattered more in the United States, with 18 Grand Slam singles titles. Multimedia Feature: From Ashe to Williams, Rackets of U.S. Open Champions
Rick Macci, the outsider who helped mold her game and Venus's game at a critical phase in their youth, is not in the least bit surprised.
'I think she'll probably end up with about 25,' Macci said Friday in a telephone interview from Florida. 'I see her breaking all the records, and if she does she definitely deserves it. She's done it on her terms, her way. She was a great kid. When she was little, she was very happy-go-lucky. She and Venus were two peas in a pod, very nice and polite, but the minute the bell rang, Serena went for the jugular. It didn't matter who it was. Crazy. She flipped a switch, and it was just like, wow, get out of her way.'
Perhaps if Macci had not signed on to help Richard Williams with his family tennis project in 1991 there would have been someone else to fill that role. But Macci, a prominent junior coach who once had helped Jennifer Capriati, was the man who got the call and invested the time and the energy, working with the Williamses at his academy in Florida until 1995 when, according to Macci, financial disagreements with Richard Williams led to a split.
Macci remains convinced that both sisters could have been even better if they had used their gifts and instincts to attack the net with more regularity, particularly off returns.
But he knows they have still changed the game: with their tough-to-read, open-stance two-handed backhands to their serves, with Serena possessing the more natural motion and devastating weapon.
Macci's memories of the sisters are vivid: from his first sight of them in Compton, Calif., to their years in training. One of his earliest memories of Serena, which he related in his 2013 book 'Macci Magic,' was her playing tag as a child with a closed fist.
'I used too call her by her middle name, so I'd say, 'Hey Jameka. You can't close the fist,' ' Macci said. 'And she'd just say, 'Well, I'll close it if I want to.' I kind of liked the attitude, even at age 11. She was just a pit bull. I'm telling you. And if you have that and the talent and have decent strokes, something good is going to come out in the end. And obviously it has.
'I'm convinced that Serena, in her mind, has never lost. She just ran out of time. Obviously she can't say that, but she's just that competitive, and I think you saw it in full force when you saw that little episode with the umpire calling the foot fault at the Open a couple years ago. That's what is inside her. That's the LeBron, the Jordan, the Ray Lewis, how deep the competitiveness is of this girl. Combined with the talent, that's what makes greatness.'
So does longevity, and at 32, she was back on the same court Friday where so much bad and good has transpired through the years.
Post By http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/06/sports/tennis/with-a-youthful-ferocity-serena-williams-nears-another-us-open-title.html
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