You wait for the Queen; the Queen does not wait for you.
If you had forgotten this cold, hard fact of life, you’ve likely been reminded of it while watching the Australian Open. This week a camera stationed near the locker rooms in Rod Laver Arena—call it Tunnel-Eye—has caught each of Serena Williams’ opponents doing the same thing: Fidgeting in front of a bank of TV screens while they wait to walk on court. What’s the hold up? Serena has yet to make her entrance. After letting the other woman sweat for a few minutes, she arrives, game face on, walking with her familiar, unhurried air of authority. The players haven't hit a ball, and she’s already in control.
Yesterday the woman waiting in the wings was Madison Keys, a wide-eyed 19-year-old Midwesterner who was making her Grand Slam semifinal debut. Keys had never played Serena before; would waiting to face her on such a big stage leave her quaking in her pink Nike swooshes? Keys wondered the same thing.
“I think in that situation,” she said when the match was over, “you can almost get overwhelmed if you start focusing on Serena being on the other side of the court.”
Keys didn’t certainly didn’t look overwhelmed, on or off the court. When she saw Serena walking toward her in the tunnel, I could have sworn I saw the teenager roll her eyes and smile. I doubt that’s what happened, but it was nice to think that Keys would come out with a healthy lack of reverence for her legendary countrywoman. And she didn't show any deference in the way she smacked Serena's serve back in the opening game. Deep down, Serena herself might have appreciated this; reverence for opponents, even famous champion opponents, isn't her thing. In 1999, at age 17, Serena beat Steffi Graf, yet never for a second did she look surprised by what she had done.
Like that Steffi-Serena match in ’99, this Keys-Williams semifinal was billed as a battle of WTA generations, America’s present vs. its future. We’ll see if that turns out to be true; many of us said the same thing when Sloane Stephens played, and beat, Serena on the same court two years ago.