Whatever happens the rest of the way at the WTA Finals, this win should serve as an appropriate 2017 season-capper for Williams. It sends her into the semifinals at this tournament for the first time since 2009, which means she has made the semis or better at four of the five biggest WTA events of the year. The win also gave Venus a measure of revenge over the woman who handed her the most disappointing defeat of her season, in the Wimbledon final.
Maybe most important, it was another example of the quiet but iron-willed determination that Venus hides just beneath her stoical surface. Today she couldn’t keep it quite as well-hidden as she usually does. Venus played with a darting, all-out aggression whenever she could, and celebrated one winning point with a “Come on!” that would have made her sister proud. When Muguruza’s final forehand found the net, Venus was emotional. That Wimbledon loss had stung; maybe this took a little of that sting away.
“I was so happy to win the last point,” Williams said with a giddy grin.
Venus won this match by handcuffing Muguruza with body serves; by hitting with superior depth from the ground; by finishing at the net more often than her opponent; by resetting the rallies with defensive lobs when she was pushed wide; by surprising Muguruza with aggressive returns down the line, just as she did against her last opponent, Jelena Ostapenko. She also won because, unlike at Wimbledon, Muguruza was never comfortable on her forehand side. Whenever she seemed ready to go on a run, the Spaniard stopped herself cold by pulling up on the ball and sending a forehand into the net. Credit Williams’s depth of shot for making it tough for Muguruza to get her full weight behind the ball.
The 2017 season may eventually be seen a changing-of-the-guard moment for the WTA. Two women—Ostapenko and Sloane Stephens—won their first major titles. Three others—Muguruza, Simona Halep and Karolina Pliskova—became No. 1 for the first time. Venus is at least 11 years older than all of them, but with her win over Muguruza, she said “not so fast” to the next generation. Now she has a chance to finish the year ahead of all of them, at No. 1. The guard tried to change in 2017; can Venus single-handedly change it back? Like I said, it’s always too soon to count her out.
