Timeless

Age. It's the bane of every athlete's existence, the true Grim Reaper for the body of people who make a living running and jumping, swinging bats and racquets. If you're lucky, you still have half a life (or more) to live when it gets you, but it probably won't be a life as poignant, bittersweet, challenging, or rewarding as your first.

Lately, tennis players have been winning the war with age. Roger Federer, 17-time major champion, is still spry and competitive at age 33. A few weeks ago, 33-year-old Serena Williams surpassed Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova with her 19th Grand Slam singles title and became the second oldest woman, after Navratilova, to win a major. She continues to be the oldest woman to hold the No. 1 ranking.

Ivo Karlovic won Delray Beach last week at age 35. Tommy Haas is 36 and preparing for yet another comeback. Flavia Pennetta just celebrated her 33rd birthday and remains in the Top 20, while 44-year-old Kimiko Date-Krumm, ranked No. 106, remains on the cusp of direct acceptance at Slams.

But perhaps nobody has cheated age quite as resourcefully as a 34-year-old who ranks second on her family tennis ladder, Venus Williams. She's in the throes of a late-career renaissance that, come July, could conceivably net her a sixth Wimbledon title, seven years after she won her last.

That's a highly speculative suggestion, of course, not least because Venus was pretty much written off by all but her most diehard partisans when she was diagnosed in the summer of 2011 with the auto-immune disease Sjogren's Syndrome. The symptoms of Sjogren's include joint pain and increased vulnerability to fatigue—not exactly the most manageable of burdens for a professional tennis player.

Yet here she is, at age 34, off to a terrific and largely unanticipated start in 2015. Venus, a seven-time Grand Slam singles champion and former No. 1, was ranked No. 11 last week, after having fallen to No. 103 at the end of 2011. She won her first title in about 10 months at Auckland in January, and she lost an agonizingly close quarterfinal match to Madison Keys at the Australian Open. As incredulous reporters once again flocked to her press conferences to ask if she had envisioned ever playing so well again, she soft-pedaled the disappointment that she felt so often in the wake of her summer of 2011:

“I feel like, yeah, I have that potential. [But] when you step out time and time again and you can't reach that, it's definitely challenging and it definitely makes you feel . . . some type of way. That's all I can say about that.”

It was a fairly typical comment from Williams, one very proud woman. She's never been a complainer, nor a great rationalizer of either her triumphs or disasters. We often see the softer side of Serena, but there's an obdurate quality to Venus, as well as an emotional opacity. It's hard to know what she's really thinking, but what she was thinking in recent weeks, at least when prodded by the press, has been that her wealth of experience trumps the disadvantages of advancing age. It also helps mitigate the punishments doled out by her disease.

“I think at this level the younger body doesn't help, per se,” Williams said in Australia. “Everybody out here is ready to go. If you're here and you're playing this deep, it means that you've done the work and you're fit. . . It doesn't matter, any of these variables. That's what they are: Variables. I don't think that enters our mind out there. ”

She added, “I'm just really focused and poised right now. I feel like I've been here before, so it's not like I'm jumping up and down for joy, 'Oh, shoot, what is this? I've never done this.' Yes, I've done this. This is what I'm always going into each tournament thinking I want to do, even when I fall short. I want to win.”

It would be rash to read too much into the kind of month Venus had in January, no matter how tempting. Even players successfully managing age and injury occasionally go on a run, only to be hunted and brought to ground by their handicaps—never mind reinvigorated rivals. But you can't help but look ahead to July when it comes to Venus' case. She is, after all, a five-time Wimbledon champion, and one of the best half-dozen players in the tournament’s history. In one span, she won the grass-court major three out of four years (2005, '07, '08).

That run began with one of the greatest performances any woman ever turned in at SW19: Williams’ win over Lindsay Davenport in the 2005 title match. It's certainly my favorite women’s final ever played at Wimbledon. The score was 4-6, 7-6 (4), 9-7, and the firepower on display on either side of the net throughout the longest women’s final in Wimbledon history, at 2:45, was spectacular. Davenport even had a match point following an errant Williams serve at 4-5 in the final set. But Williams put in a first serve and ended the ensuing fierce rally with a backhand down-the-line winner.

“Every time I thought I had her,” Davenport once told me, referring to that match, “She just elevated her game. She took it out of my hands.”

Granted, that was then, and this is now. Venus is a decade older and physically compromised. But she demonstrated last month that hard work abetted by a rigorous diet and experience managing her condition have paid dividends.

Moreover—and this may be the most relevant detail of all—Venus, though just 25 at time of that final, wasn't in the greatest of shape. She was on the rebound from injury. She was error-prone and her stroke production often looked undisciplined. She was well off the pace set by the contenders, and winless in the Grand Slam title hunt for nearly four full years.

Given the speed of the grass and the power, athleticism, and range of Venus, combined with the dearth of possible opponents who play effective, attacking tennis on grass, is it really far-fetched to imagine a Williams not named Serena winning in a few months’ time in London?

Venus’ history also suggests that she's a player fueled by inspiration. She doesn't appear ever to have needed to dominate; how could she, with an insistent younger sibling who wanted to do precisely that? That makes it easy to write her off when her results point toward a lack of motivation.

Beyond that, Venus is a player who keeps her own counsel. She's observant and diligent. As deeply as she craves winning, she doesn't appear addicted to her celebrity. You don't exactly get the sense that she avoids the limelight; you might be more inclined to think she doesn't really care about the fluffy stuff, one way or the other. So long as it doesn't interfere with what she is trying to accomplish.

We never really know just what Venus Williams is thinking, although she does indulge in moments of crystal-clear communication. After she survived that final against Davenport, the press asked if she felt at any point that she was destined not to win another major during her four-year drought. She answered:

“Oh, no. I knew my destiny was to be in the winner's circle. There were times along the way where I didn't make it there. But I felt my destiny was definitely to win big titles, win lots of titles.”

And after losing in the quarterfinals in Melbourne to young Keys, Venus offered this:

“I was 19 once. I beat players who were more experienced. But at the end of the day if you can hit the ball in the court enough times and get enough points on your side, that will be who wins—no matter what the other numbers are.”

Venus may appear ageless, but perhaps the word that better describes her is the one often used to describe Wimbledon: Timeless.