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.

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The Past, the Present, and Still the Future

The Past, the Present, and Still the Future

Serena herself seems to believe in Keys. After defeating her 7-6 (5), 6-2, she sung her young opponent’s praises highly, more highly than I remember her singing them for Sloane. (Of course, it may have helped that Keys didn’t have the temerity, like Stephens, to actually beat Serena here.)

“I think she can be really good,” Serena began, somewhat tepidly, before warming to her subject. “I think she can go really, really far. I think she can be the best in the world. The way she played today, I definitely think she has potential to be No. 1 and win Grand Slams. It’s exciting to see.”

Serena even got in what could be interpreted as a dig at the often-sullen Stephens.

“It’s great to see her do well as an American, as well,” Williams said of Keys. “Me and my sister, we’ve been fighting so long. Now she’s coming up. So many Americans, as well. But her in particular, just doing so well consistently. She just has this desire to be the best. That’s what it takes.”

Watching the first set, you could see why Serena would be impressed. Keys not only hung with her, she controlled the rallies. Keys finished with more winners (26 to 17) and just one fewer ace (Serena led 13 to 12). Keys had played well in her first five matches, but if anything her forehand was cleaner and more lethal in this one. Serena, who was nearly bowled over by a couple of Keys’ returns, admitted that she was surprised by the quality of her shots.

“She hits a very, very, hard ball,” Williams said, “but she also hits it very deep. So it’s a little different trying to prepare for that. So I wasn’t really ready for that.”

Serena was ready to find a way to win anyway. Instead of slugging with Keys, she moved her; when that didn’t work, she used her serve to get her out of trouble. Most important, Serena was ready for the first-set tiebreaker, which essentially decided the match. At 1-1, Keys missed a first serve. That’s hardly a mortal sin against most players, but Serena didn’t let the slip-up go unpunished. She jumped on the second serve with a deep backhand return that Keys couldn’t handle. Serena had her mini-break, and she served out the set from there.

Afterward, Keys focused on the positives.

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The Past, the Present, and Still the Future

The Past, the Present, and Still the Future

“I think this week has definitely shown more to me,” she said, “more than anyone else, that I can play the top players and can do well against them. I can play the No. 1 player in the world in a pretty close match. So I think for me that’s inspiration for every time I’m on a practice court.”

Keys knows now that she can compete with the best. What else can the up-and-comer learn from the legend? In my mind Serena shows that, to remain a champion over a long period of time, it's not enough just to be upbeat and positive about your chances—to her, losing is simply wrong. Even today, when there’s seemingly nothing left for her to prove, Serena never caves in and takes the realistic, you-can’t-win-’em-all point of view. She never caves in and acknowledges that someday, someone younger may come along and dethrone her. You could hear that again in her press conference yesterday.

While Serena hugged Keys at the net and praised her later, her initial reaction in the interview room was to give her a slightly backhanded compliment. The first question Serena heard was this:

“What impressed you most about her game? First time you played her.”

“Well,” Serena said, perhaps miffed that the focus was immediately on the loser, rather than the winner, “I was impressed by her ability to stay in the match.”

Serena was referring to the eight match points that Keys, in a show of stubbornly spectacular shotmaking, saved at the end of the second set. A little later, when Serena was asked what was going through her head during those match points, she didn’t sound all that impressed.

“I just thought I was going to serve it out regardless,” she said. “Every time I had a match point I just pushed instead of going for my shots....I think more than anything else she just went for broke at that point. She had nothing to lose times a million, so she just really went for everything.”

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The Past, the Present, and Still the Future

The Past, the Present, and Still the Future

From the time they were pre-teens, Serena and her sister Venus have believed that every match is squarely on their racquets, and that if they do what they’re supposed to do, no one can beat them. Their father, Richard, convinced them of this when they were kids; with Serena at least, the spell has never worn off. It’s a mindset that’s foreign to most of us, but not to tennis’ best players—in their primes, Graf, Pete Sampras, Roger Federer, Martina Navratilova, John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, and Ivan Lendl all thought the same thing. And it worked for all of them.

Does Madison Keys think this way? Does she need to think this way? Not necessarily. She seems to be level-headed and a hard worker. With her ultra-live arm, that could be enough to take her to No. 1. And she says she's hungry to get there.

“For me,” Keys said, “even this week, I still want more. I think I will be forever that way. For me it’s just never being satisfied with what I’ve done and always just wanting more and more.”

Sounds good, but with Serena the disappointment of losing cuts deeper; it goes against the natural order of the universe. For Serena, going out in the semifinals of a Grand Slam isn't a good or bad result—it's the wrong result.

And that’s why she's still the Queen. That's why she's going for her 19th major in two days. That's why the future of American tennis, at this Australian Open and beyond, is still Serena Williams.