Friday 28 March 2008

Great moments in tennis history No 6 - the Serena Slam starts here

Paris, 2002, Serena Williams beating her older sister Venus in the French Open final. Seems hard to imagine now but at the time there was a lot of concern about the Williams Sisters (and their Dad) being bad for tennis.

Messed up thinking if you ask me. I never quite understood how people could think that two charismatic, talented, athletes – who have subsequently turned so many new people onto tennis – could ever be anything but fantastic for the sport.

OK the match itself was no classic with both Sisters making too many unforced errors, but it was the start of something special - the Serena Slam.

She then went onto win the other 3 Grand Slam events in the following 7 months, so that come January 2003 she held all 4 Slam titles.

The best moment in Paris came at the end of the match when Venus dashed off court only to re-emerge from the locker room – to the surprise and delight of the crowd - with her camera.

Venus then elbowed the press photographers out of the way to take pictures of her sister lifting the trophy. A great illustration of how close ‘Team Williams’ are. You can watch this super moment below (hope your French is better than mine) and you can read the Guardian’s write up here

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It is a shame that Serena and Venus get so much stick. Women's tennis is so much more exciting when they free from injury and playing on the WTA tour.