Ay fleeth the tyme; it nyl no man abyde."
Goeffrey Chaucer, The Clerk's Tale
Time waits for no man. Not even Serena Williams.
Last night's tennis match was not a bullfight. This was no predestined narrative of doom. Anything could have happened. In the prior round of the U.S. Open tournament Serena Williams had come from behind to defeat the woman ranked number two in the world. Williams, for two decades the grand woman of tennis, had announced her retirement after this final tournament. The stage was set for a grand finale. Possibly she would finish her career on top, with another tournament win. The crowd was there to see this spectacular conclusion to a spectacular career.
She lost last night to 29-year-old Ajla Tomljanović.
Williams had taken a break from tennis to bear her first child. This was a come-back performance before her permanent retirement. She said her decision to end a career of elite tennis was to make room for motherhood, a second child, and her fashion career. The politically inclined could see Williams' career as another narrative, an iteration of the familiar story of the inequality of gender biology and career. Females experience pregnancy and bear children. Williams is 40 and turns 41 later this month. She is running out of time. A male could sire a child and carry on an uninterrupted career as an elite athlete. This was the familiar dilemma for women. For Williams, two roads diverged and she could not travel both, not at the same time, not at the elite level.
Williams was expected to win last night's match. Williams had already dispatched someone presumably more formidable. The 29,000 people in the crowd were overwhelmingly on Williams' side, cheering the champion's points. They also cheered Tomljanović's faults and unforced errors, something tennis crowds normally do not do. Tomljanović was the scrappy unloved competitor taking on the beloved hero. All the attention was on Serena Williams. The match was an episode in Williams' story: Would Williams win? The match offers another metaphor and narrative. You are hit by the bus coming from the direction you aren't looking. Not that people noticed, but there was a second story being told: Tomljanović's.
Last night's match felt like a Greek tragedy to me. It was unscripted, but having played out, we see the end was inevitable after all. As in any tragedy, a person of significance is brought down by a flaw in the hero's nature. Williams' flaw wasn't one of moral character. We saw her grace and effort. Her tragic flaw was time and biology. Williams was big, strong, and tired, and showing her age. The highlight reels of the match neglect to show what I considered the most telling element of the match. As Williams awaited to receive a serve she swayed back and forth, feet planted. Tomljanović skipped and jumped, with feet bouncing. Three hours into the match Tomljanović had nervous energy. Williams had had her turn. Now it was the turn of people who skip and bounce between serves.
This is a political blog, so I will make a quick political point. Elite power, like elite tennis championships, is not given up gracefully. Tomljanović defeated her. Biden, Trump, Pelosi, Hoyer, Schumer, Feinstein, Grassley and the others did not get power so they could give it up gracefully. Someone will pull it from their aging fingers.
6 comments:
I don't think Serena expected to win, she knew she was at a disadvantage. I would imagine she could keep playing, and losing, and still draw crowds, but chose, wisely, to accept that her time was over.
I look at it another way, as a seasoned pro who simply wanted to go on the field one last time. It's hard to resist. The Rolling Stones still touring, part desire, part inertia.
There's only so much room at the top...
Aging is the way to replace the old with the new. I will soon be elderly. My mind doesn’t feel old, but my body has its issues and when I look in the mirror I see an old guy. Sometimes it surprises me that I look that old, but there it is.
That’s the good thing about Trump as he is old and will be replaced, over his dead body, but replaced he will be. The bad news is so will I.
“They also cheered Tomljanovic’s faults and unforced errors, something tennis crowds normally do not do”.
Rarely if ever at Wimbledon, or the French and Australian Opens. Often do at the U.S. Open, the site of Serena Williams’ very worst of many displays of poor character over the years, increasingly as her winning was no longer a foregone conclusion. Once at the Open she abused a female Asian umpire, at first like McEnroe might have done, but then as if Serena was also victim of ump racism. Unlike last night, to her credit, her defeat was not immediately blamed on some nebulous injury or something else that prevented her from performing at her best, the suggestion always that her opponent would not win under “fair’ conditions. Perhaps that familiar tone will return the next time she inveighs against her general victimhood alongside her fellow sufferer in societal oppression, podcast partner Princess Meghan Markle.
All things must pass. It's life and death. Tragic is just our interpretation.
There’s a character in Catch-22 who was determined to live forever or die in the attempt.
Good riddance to one of the most unpleasant celebrity athletes, most hateful athletes, ever to cross the stage. Her rants at the Open, in the Kim and Naomi matches, were unforgivable, and her post-event apologies hard to swallow. The hagiographic celebration of her career have skipped over it all. Moreover, the behavior of the Open crowds has been utterly bush, without a murmur of appreciation for the wonderful efforts of Serena's respectful opponents. Goodbye, at last. Nearly ruined tennis for me these past couple of decades...but not quite. Her sister redeemed her, in part.
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