Warning to the sorority girls of women’s tennis: Momma’s gonna knock you out

Serena Williams is back for Wimbledon. If anyone can spoil the sorority party at the top of the women’s games, it’s the 40-year-old.

Serena Williams at Wimbledon, her favourite patch of dirt

Serena Williams has just given birth. A complicated C-section. She’s in her hospital bed, applying some lippy and make-up so she can take photos with her baby girl, when her husband rolls the family video recorder and asks about the chances of their newborn winning major championships in the decades to come. Williams doesn’t bat an eyelid when she says, “Not if I’m still on tour.”

Momma lifts her head from the pillow. Gulps. Gasps. Coughs. Splutters. She’s petrified. “I remember telling the nurse, ‘I can’t breathe, I need a mask,” she says. “I put the oxygen mask on. I started coughing because I couldn’t breathe. It hurt so bad. So bad. I was in the bathroom with my mom and I was just crying and crying. She was crying and she was like, ‘You’ve just got to breathe.’ And I was like, ‘I can’t.’ It was just really hard.”

Tubes are up her nose. Down her throat. She’s wheeled back to the operating room. “They have to re-open my C-section to restitch it,” she says. “And then they have to check for blood clots. They’re doing all these different tests but everything is negative. I’m like, listen, I need you to do a CAT scan, with dye, because I have a pulmonary embolism in my lungs. I know it. I’ve had this before. I know my body.”

They do a CAT scan, probably with dye, and she’s right. Pulmonary embolism. The geeky tech guy fears she’ll lose her life. Williams is bawling, holding her baby, to be named Alexis Olympia. She’s dejected, frail, vulnerable and gravely ill. Williams as a woman and not the foot-stomping, caterwauling, dagger-staring athlete or the glammed up celebrity you seen in tennis tournaments, Beyonce videos, Oscar-winning Will Smith movies or press conferences. Baby may die. she may die. She’s bedridden for six weeks.

“Every day I’m back on the operating table for something different,” she says. “One thing after another. Eventually I got another blood clot in my leg. The decision was for me to go into a third surgery. They put a filter in me that blocks blood clots from being able to get up to my heart. I was so healthy in my pregnancy. It was so easy and I didn’t have any problems but unfortunately, once I had the C-section, everything from there was pretty much a nightmare.”

Williams recalls all this in Being Serena, the documentary they should show on Murray’s Mound before her return to Wimbledon later this month. She has lived to tell the tale and have her crack at an eighth title at the All England club but, more importantly, the 24th major title she needs to equal Margaret Court’s record. It has been five years since momma skipped five majors to become a mother. She has consistently come up short when Court’s record has been in sight. She has been nervous and tense and error-prone because of the scale of the accomplishment at her fingertips. She has forgotten to breathe.

“Let’s go,” Williams has told her 14.8 million Instagram followers in announcing her comeback to her favourite patch of dirt. What’s she walking into? Women’s tennis has become a bit of a sorority party in recent years. They’re all so happy and friendly and amiable and Iga Swiatek is Little Miss Sunshine compared with past World No.1s, who’ve scratched each other’s eyes out to win. Pyjama catch-ups, Katy Perry music, ice cream and sleepovers at Coco Gauff’s place for pillow fights and gossip are all that’s missing from the current WTA Tour, and they’re probably to be commended for their decency and sportsmanship, but they should take a deep gulp and consider what and who is coming for them. Momma. Someone with more tennis and life experiences than the rest of them put together.

“I’ve had a lot of battles,” Wil­liams says. “I believe I have the strength to do anything that I set my mind to.”

She’ll put her mind to spoiling the sorority party. It’s unlikely. Her only warm-up event will be playing doubles with Ons Jabeur at intimate little Eastbourne next week. But as Rafael Nadal keeps proving, you never know what sporting miracles a sporting legend can conjure. Serena versus the Sorority has as many contrasts as Borg versus McEnroe. Swiatek is 21 years old; Williams is playing her 21st Wimbledon. Her comeback brings to mind all her other comebacks. In 2018, before returning to the US Open for the first time as a momma, she has done a television promotion in which she’s repeated a few choice LL Cool J lyrics. “Don’t call it a comeback,” she has said. “I’ve been here for years. Rocking my peers. Putting suckers in fear … don’t ever compare me to the rest. I’m gonna knock you out.” They’ve shown footage of her serve, the most thunderous in the history of the women’s game, before she stares into the camera and deadpanned: “Mama said, knock you out.”

All she has to do is breath. It has been five years since she won the Australian Open for major No.23. Baby was in her tummy at the time. It was a given that she’d break Court’s record. She missed the next four majors to settle into her momma’s life, always intending to return and eclipse Court.

She has played 13 majors since – and won none. Four finals defeats have been especially galling because tension and anxiety have done her in.

Court’s record does her head in. She should have eaten Angelique Kerber for breakfast at Wimbledon in 2018. Lost. She should have chewed up Simona Halep and spat her out at Wimbledon in 2019. Lost. She should have outsmarted and out-hit Naomi Osaka at the US Open in 2018. Lost. She should have beaten Bianca Andreescu with a baby blanket as a blindfold at the US Open in 2019. Lost.

When she coughed up an error-strewn defeat to Osaka in their 2021 Australian Open semi-final, another opportunity lost and time running out, she was distraught in her post-match interview, bursting into tears and saying: “I’m done.”

Which we’d taken as code for her retirement. Done with our discussion. Done with tennis. Done with trying to match Court. She tried again at Wimbledon last year before departing in the worst possible circumstances. She’d torn her hamstring in round one against Belarusian Aliaksandra Sasnovich. Fallen to her knees. Allowed her furrowed brow to rest gently on the turf. The crowd had fallen painfully and eerily silence as a posh commentator whispered, “Oh, dear. Oh, no.”

Momma’s dragged herself to her feet, using her racquet as a crutch. Burst into tears. Covered her mouth with her forearm and properly sobbed. Saluted the crowd with a hand on the one thing you can never question. Her heart. Hobbling, she needed to be helped to the locker room. She hasn’t played since.

Momma’s gonna knock you out. Unless she knocks herself out. Comparing her resume to Swiatek’s is holding an ocean to a pond. She has won 73 WTA Tour titles. Swiatek has won two. Williams has been World No.1 for 319 weeks. Swiatek has been there since March.

But momma’s ruinous nerves since Court’s feat has come into view have resembled a Test batter just needing a quick single to reach his first century. Should be easy. It’s so hard.

She has been through accusations of match-fixing with Venus; been through disgraceful racism at Indian Wells; been through the traumatic, life-threatening birth of her daughter and then post-natal depression; been through the murder of her half-sister and personal assistant, Yetunde Price, outside a crack house in Compton.

She has hosted Beyonce and Kim Kardashian at her wedding; she has appeared in music videos with Alicia Keys and Kanye West; she has been nerveless enough to win four Olympic gold medals; she has been famous enough to be characterised in The Simpsons; she has guest-starred in umpteen Hollywood TV shows; she doesn’t have Kate Middleton watching as a member of the royal family and patron of the All England club, she has her there as a mate. Point being, she’s in another realm when it comes to being a larger-than-life presence. Mom­ma’s gonna psyche a few of them out.

Prediction for Wimbledon? It’ll be emotional. Unmissable. She thinks Kipling’s a damn fool for his line about treating victory and defeat just the same. White-line fever has never run so hot. Personalities have rarely been so unique. Her ferociousness is famous, but she can be funny.

She’s the only player I can recall ordering a coffee during a match. It was the 2015 Hopman Cup in Perth. She asked umpire Alison Hughes something like can I have a cuppa? Hughes replied, what? Williams said, “Is it illegal to order an espresso? I mean, I don’t know if it’s allowed. Is it allowed? Can I get a shot of coffee?” Next change of ends, a ball girl brought her one.

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The self-described “ghetto princess” isn’t always so polite. “I’ll f..king take the ball and shove it down your throat,” was momma’s response to a foot-fault call in the 2009 US Open final against Kim Clijsters. She has been docked a penalty point for her trucker’s mouth, which just so happened to be at match point, so she’d been booted out of the final to boos, jeers and hisses. The lineswoman claims momma has threatened to kill her. Wil­liams has ended up saying: “I‘m a woman of great pride, faith and integrity, and I admit when I’m wrong. I need to make it clear to all young people that I handled myself inappropriately and it’s not the way to act – win or lose, good call or bad call in any sport, in any manner. I like to lead by example. We all learn from experiences both good and bad, I will learn and grow from this, and be a better person as a result.”

She has walked out of Flushing Meadows in a sky-blue T-shirt that has said: “Can I get an amen?” Perhaps she doesn’t have a prayer at Wimbledon because of her basically non-existent preparation and her advanced years. Or perhaps the World No.1208 is such an outrageous underdog and overwhelming sentimental favourite that she will produce her best moment at the last.

Take a squiz at Being Serena between now and Wimbledon. It’ll help you understand her. She’s an uncomplicated and likeable human when she’s not in the role of complex and polarising sportswoman. A whole lot of blood, sweat and tears has gone into this career and lifetime of hers.

She’s scared she cannot simultaneously be a great mother and athlete. She figures there’s only one way to find out. Head to Wimbledon, via a hit of doubles at Eastbourne, for one last attempt to do both. Are the newborns like Swiatek guaranteed to keep winning? I’m guessing momma doesn't bat and eyelid when she tells herself: “Not if I’m still on tour.”